Finance should be like the circulatory system flowing through the body to make sure everything runs in good condition. Today's world of finance is like the blood buying up the organs, sucking out the nutrients for itself, and spitting back what's leftover. It then justifies what it's doing by saying it is making the body more efficient (as it invites politicians to come party on all those extra nutrients). Meanwhile, the body is starving, the organs have a hard time functioning, and the system is in mortal danger.
The elections are forcing them to look out the windows of their mansions in Greenwich, plush offices on Wall Street, and summer homes in the Hamptons and notice that some of the organs are starting to fight back.
19
Life is random, so is the distribution of wealth. Mandatory billionaire IQ testing should be required and results published. Warren for President.
3
Wall Street is scared and angry that the free ride is ending. They always expected to corrupt and to bribe politicians to get their way. Now, they may have to pay up like everyone else.
4
"they’re coming from people with vast wealth but fragile egos, whose rants should be discounted appropriately." Hmm, a perfect description of the man in the oval office, except he thinks he deserves everything he can get.
3
Tims for pitchforks and torches. We are finally going to make the rich pay their fair share
Go Warren Go. She is going to win.
5
The Wall street mouthpieces are also having a cow with Steven Rattner and Larry Summers penning Op-Eds today. Expect to see more every day till the election.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/04/opinion/medicare-warren-plan.html
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2019/11/05/warrens-plan-finance-medicare-for-all-pushes-into-dangerous-uncharted-territory/
1
Very well-written, insightful, and enough truth to make the super rich wiggle in their satin underwear. Hear, Hear!
3
"There's something pecularly base and ignoble and diseased about the rich. Money breeds a kind of gangrened insensitiveness. It's inevitable. ... Neighbourliness is the touchstone that shows up the rich"
"But you rich, you have no real neighbours. You never perform a neighbourly action or expect neighbours to do you a kindness in return. It's unnecessary. You can pay people to look after you. You can hire servants to simulate kindness... No, you're generally not even aware of your neighbours. You live at a distance from them. Each of you is boxed up in his own secret house..."
- Somerset Maughn
7
I wonder if Prof. Krugman was in a room with Mr. Rattner, who would wind up crying and whining? My money is on Rattner.
1
have ANY of the candidates talked about campaign finance reform, or ending citizens united? if i recall, none of these self made billionaires are going to be hurt by any of the proposed "wealth tax"...they will be played out like the death squads of the past.....im sure there are fools, that will believe it (see all gop voters), but lets keep the good fight going. with information like this from mr krugman, im sure we can flip some voters, and states. please inform as many as you can, we can do this.
1
Me thinks they protest too much. Wonder why?
1
These are, as usual, wise comments. And Wall Street has a huge disadvantage, they are just 1% of the voters. We know that about one third of the 99% will continue supporting the wealthy because they will be scared by the fear strategy usually employed by the extremely rich: "The economy will collapse if you support Medicare for all". We still remember what they said when Obamacare was created. However the unemployment rate is quite down, as opposed to what the Republican "experts" predicted. Besides the Obama administration made an excellent job: The health of Wall Street is now very good, thanks to its historic efforts, and of course the insane tax cut. President Obama deserves a statue there. Just put the Charging Bull in a storage warehouse.
3
Indeed. Look at the guy with the most fragile ego of all: He doesn't even have the money he claims to have, is a liar and a swindler, and is currently squatting in the White House pretending not to be an amateur golfer.
8
Ever have GOUT, Mr. Krugman? No?
Neither have I. Thank the Lord!
I've seen (in a museum) a plastic representation of a human foot--the big toe horribly reddened and distended by GOUT. And (of course) it becomes horribly sensitive to any kind of pain or pressure. Hence those big boots I've seen in old time movies. Protecting that fragile big toe.
GOUT (they say) is a rich person's disease. Afflicting guys who devour huge quantities of rich, unhealthy food.
I would suggest, Mr. Krugman--these billionaires suffer from a kind of SPIRITUAL GOUT.
Having been catered to all their lives--and accompanied (of course) by bevies of obsequious, bowing minions--
--the merest breath of criticism you speak of--
--must be agonizingly PAINFUL to those sensitive souls.
"No no! Stop it! Stop it! I can't STAND it--stop! Please stop! Please!"
To finish the analogy, I think Ms. Warren (and others) are proposing a new--lean mean diet for these pampered billionaires.
"Time to cut way BACK, Mr. ___________. Time to start eating HEALTHY again, Mr. ____________"
They should welcome all these initiatives, don't you think?
These might drastically lessen the risks of SPIRITUAL GOUT those unfortunate people suffer from.
Of course, they might NOT either.
Not that any of us care.
4
All billionaires do for "our society" (their words!) is avoid taxation, lobby for no regulation of stock trades, overpay themselves with astronomical "bonuses", lobby for incessant lowering of capital gains taxes, etc., then magnanimously celebrate their very existence (a la Cooperman) with extravagant and ostentatious galas. Since Citizens United (thanks again, Alito and Roberts), they've been able to "cleverly" disguise their bribery of our elected representatives. Oh, I meant lobbying.
They do NOT make positive contributions to our country, nor our society. Case in point? Zuckerberg.
5
In the parlance of Wall Street it’s known as talking your book. They are only interested in what will be profitable for them and they aren’t interested in anyone else. Nothing wrong with them being self serving, as long as everyone understands their motives. It’s not very complex.
1
> It’s not surprising that Warren is getting very little money from the financial sector. It is, however, surprising that the top recipient isn’t Joe Biden but Pete Buttigieg,
According to Open Secrets:
- Buttigieg's financial sector donations are $48,301 from Blackstone Group and $65,211 from Wells Fargo.
- Biden's financial sector donations are $42,435 from Blackstone Group and $46,326 from Wells Fargo.
By industry, "Finance, Insurance & Real Estate" has contributed $2.6M to Biden and $2.9M to Buttigieg.
These are hardly meaningful differences, especially since Buttigieg has raised more money from more donors. But sure... Pete's under the thumb of Wall Street.
1
Keep it coming Paul.
2
"In any case, the point is that Wall Street billionaires, even more than billionaires in general, seem to be snowflakes, emotionally unable to handle criticism."
This is simply trolling and the article is a last minute poorly argued rant. It remains interesting to me to watch how the people in their echo chambers (which almost everyone is) proceeds to write such unsophisticated claptrap because they know how easy and warmed up their audience is.
Right here in River City (Minneapolis) we have lots of financial tycoons who can handle criticism, as well as dish it out.
Which is why Liz Warren would get creamed in Minnesota next year should she be the nominee...just like she'll get creamed in other health insurance heavy states like RI and CT and maybe even CA.
Turns out that M4A not only bankrupts a company that employs 120,000 people, but wipes out a $250 billion company that feeds the property values that feed the property taxes that educate the kids of those college educated white women who hate Trump.
Mess with their Escalades, Pilates or Soy Chai Lattes after they drop off their kid at the Spanish or French Immersion school and you'll not get their vote.
Which is why Dean Phillips and Angie Craig are sweating bullets. They know if Warren is at the top of the ticket, they're history.
Which would explain them jumping to the front of the line on orders of Nancy Pelosi to quickly defend Joe Biden and his $3 million beneficiary of Ukrainian "hospitality."
It is time we cook and eat these people (or feed them to livestock or use them as fertilizer, etc) and divide up their wealth.
1
I'm not sure it's all that complicated. Racial bias and misogyny are fairly common afflictions among the old white guys who make up the overwhelming majority of the uber wealthy. Uppity women and/or people with darker flesh tones make them crazy.
6
Apparently you did not read Leon Cooperman’s letter prior to your diatribe against the self made philanthropist.It was neither self- pitying nor embarrassing. Rather, It was a pointed response to Warren’s position on the wealth tax and the wealthy and itself a response to a personal attack by Warren on Cooperman. It appears that neither you nor Warren feel that an intelligent substantive response to Cooperman’s views is warranted or are incapable of so doing. Instead you both ignore the substance of his arguments and are simply dismissive of him personally. I see little difference between your collective behavior and ad hominem attacks and that found in Donald Trump’s tweets. Shame on you both.
1
See Bogel’s book The Battle for the Soul of Capitalism which gives concrete information on the undue amount the financial industry has taken from our society. Vogel also notes the lack of fiduciary commitment in the financial industry. The book factually exposes the financial Industry with reliable data not ideology. I doubt if Trump ( our Barabbas) or Fox News could change the truth in this book with propaganda.
4
"Wall Street claims that progressive policies would have dire effects." The same siren song by Wall Street and Republicans since FDR! Now Trump, it is only going to get worse!
5
The point well made in this article if the Dems do not flip the Senate, and outside chance at best. Dr No or Comrade McConnell will stop every progressive bill. I do believe the carping about Warren my have the desired effect of derailing her campaign. But is tough resilient and committed well suited for the slog ahead.
In the past year Pete Buttigieg has received more money from Wall Street than any other candidate, and is beholden to Zuckerberg. Their corrupt goal is to defeat Warren.
1
As always, Dr. Krugman, great article!
2
Democracy cannot survive either concentrated wealth or widespread ignorance. As long as billionaires can continue to hoodwink the public into believing that they somehow "earned" their obscene wealth, democracy in America is doomed.
1
Since Keynes, the main ambition of economists, a profession that really did not need to exist according to the beautiful picture revealed by Adam Smith, has been to engineer the government take over of the US economy. Mr. Krugman: please keep defending $ 50 Trillion medicare for all, $ 100 Trillion Green New Deal, $ 200 Trillion MMT. Friedman must be turning around in his grave :(
1
While the billionaires can certainly afford more in taxes and should be paying them, I see Wall Street as representing millions of small investors like me. Everyone who has a 401K or an IRA would be paying some of the taxes that Warren has proposed unless exempted if under a certain income.
But there is no excuse for the vitriol. There is no pity for the billionaire who may have to buy one less bauble to pay his or her taxes.
3
"But the health industry’s political role has been relatively muted so far. Partly this may reflect realism: Even if Warren becomes president, the chances of getting Medicare for all through Congress are small."
The chances seem extremely remote from what I have been reading, because even if she also got a Senate majority, a lot of Democrats in the Senate and House are moderates anyway, and prefer a buy-in.
M4A is a great debate to be having and the debate is necessary and helps us chart a path and a vision for the future.
However, it does not seem to be a winning proposal at the moment for the GE and gives the GOP more fodder for painting imaginary villains. "Socialism, Takeovers, Taxes, Oh My!"
So, it is sort of a shame that Warren did not opt for the buy-in in her campaign. Since that is where we will probably end up even if she did get elected.
She is a good candidate and could have won, I think. I don't think she needed to set herself apart in this way. She could have one on sheer grit and energy and she is likable - though many a blue collar man above a certain age in swing states may disagree (Hillary factor - educated female).
2
Attire is the only things robber barons change from one generation to the next. I saw trouble when Obama praised Lincoln and Reagan as inspirational presidents during his first State of the Union speech and ignored how FDR created Social Security and public utilities and LBJ for enacting Voting Rights, Fair Housing, and Medicare. We need a president like Warren who relishes a scrum with oligarchs who want to turn our public investments in private treasures and pollute our air and water for good measure.
2
Professor Krugman, ever since Warren and Sanders started climbing in the polls, I've seen a lot of concern-trolling about the Democrats from your colleagues on the editorial page.
"Everyone loves their health insurance," the members of New York's Ivy League clubs assure one another.
2
Remember: "Greed is good . . . ." "He with the most gold, rules the most . . . ." "Everybody [especially the super wealthy] wants to rule the world . . . ." "Money is power . . . ." and so on.
Have always liked the conversation attributed to Hemingway and Fitzgerald. Fitzgerald: "Hemingway, there is a difference between the rich and you and me." Hemingway: "Yes, the rich have more money."
3
Vast wealth, fragile egos, . . . and near-unlimited ability to buy political influence
I worry much less about the election impact of Trump's 'base' than I do about the profound election impact of those with money who are benefiting royally from Trump's policies.
These aren't salivating with glee-inebriated grins at Trump's rallies, they aren't sticking MAGA bumper stickers and confederate flags on pickup trucks, they aren't posting beatific Trump faces on our Facebook feed. They aren't even preaching to the faithful that a vote against Trump is a vote against God.
They are deliberately, quietly and effectively buying the election with eyes and nerves as cold as steel, not a single moral bone in their bodies.
They will make sure there are enough 'citizen' votes to re-elect Trump.
They usually get what they want.
5
I would bet you any given billionaire actually has doubts that they deserve to earn the kind of money they do. Any billionaire or other overpaid CEO knows that they do not add that kind of value to the world. This is their secret shame, but they do NOT want anyone to say it out loud.
Their self-worth seems to be tied up in the pursuit and hoarding of their money and yet they are probably no happier than anyone else. They do not want to admit this to anyone, especially themselves.
3
@As-I-Seeit
To me, Democrats saying that the rich are evil has the same weight as Republicans saying that the poor are lazy - .000 ounces - none.
I know some very lazy and kind rich folks and some rather not-so-nice energetic poor people, and on and on...
Yes, there is too much corporate influence and money influence in Washington - we have to change this.
It makes it hard for the voice of the average citizen to be heard am uphill climb.
However, there are a lot of philanthropic billionaires that actually want their taxes raised as well and not all rich people are Republicans, etc.
1
You have lost your ability to focus on the real issues. Washington is paralyzed, a debt ceiling and shutdown crisis are looming and Trump is handing Putin the keys. You focused on Wall Street when the real danger is that the capital of the US may soon be Moscow.
3
The stock market does better under Democrats than it does under Republicans, so the rich do just fine when Democrats control the government — better, in some objective ways, than under Republicans. But, what the Republicans do manage to do pretty successfully is create a bigger gap between the rich and everyone else, even if overall the country is poorer. It’s easy to surmise this is what the rich really prefer about the GOP. They like being on top and no one threatening that position.
2
The crazy and cowardly criticism of Warren emanates not only from Wall Street but also from the pages of this newspaper. The pundits and readers of the NYT who denigrate Warren and her policy proposals are afraid that a progressive cannot beat a corrupt conservative. That's how low so many liberals and otherwise well-meaning people in this country have sunk. So we'll likely get another centerist, snowflake who will do little or nothing to reform the this country from top to bottom and save the planet from catastrophic global warming, or four more years of madness. We deserve to suffer for our selfishness, cowardice. timidity and myopia. Future generations do not. If there is a Heaven, we certainly don't deserve to be there after we pass. If there is a Hell, it will certainly be the one we are creating for our descendants.
3
Dr. Krugman,
Thank you for this article and I hope Sen. Warren will look at ways that will allow her to appeal to people who need her help most.
Right now, at this moment when she is at or on the top in primary polls, I think what would really resonate would be for her to come out and say that one of the most important jobs of a President is security and that means "secure borders".
...and she would say, "that due to the inflammatory rhetoric of this President advertising that the door is open, we have these unprecedented numbers. The word has spread that our Southern border is a "walk thru" and is attracting international asylum seekers at great risk to themselves. Therefore, it will be one of my first duties to tighten our laws, clarify who is eligible for asylum and work with our Southern neighbors to manage the problems. Sovereign countries can only maintain sovereignty by controlling their borders and deciding who will be invited into the Country."
Sen. Warren, I believe, right now, would be on top if she had taken a position of strength on this issue and addressed the concerns of people who feel they have been disadvantaged by immigration.
2
America has a long tradition of hatred of "socialism" among millionaires, vulgarized by Ayn Rand's vulgar substitute for philosophy, i.e. each to his own and devil take the hindmost. Quite simply socialism is most often defined as taking away more money in taxes from the very rich to spend on say education or health for the poor, or even roads and ports and dams. This is clearly illogical, as healthier and better educated workers would increase society's wealth, including of the rich, and better,more modern infrastructure would do the same.
3
First off, I find it amusing anyone with liberal leanings would use the term "snowflake" to describe others. However, that being said, if a person thinks raising the tax level on the "rich" will ensure that they pay up is naive. This is just normal political swill...aimed at catching peoples attention and getting votes. Tax shelters, dodges, thinly veiled contributions, and the like will continue to ensure business as usual. The only real alternative is to do away with all non-standard deductions and enact a flat tax. The rate would actually go down for normal people plus we could do away with a significant amount of the bureaucracy of the IRS.
2
It isn't only Wall Street billionaires who criticize some of Warren's ideas. Warren is a fantastic ideas person, a brilliant communicator--of ideas. But the presidency doesn't require such brilliance. What it requires, above all, is whatever sort of charisma it is that allows a president to be a symbol of leadership accepted widely enough to create, and enhance, a degree of political stability--which is an absolute prerequisite of political accomplishment, in the sense of making constructive policy changes. A President Warren hated by approximately half the country will end up being forced to rely on executive powers to make changes she wants, very much as her two predecessors will have done. All her brilliance won't matter at all. A president doesn't lead by brilliance, but by being trusted and knowing--not explaining, but knowing, silently--where effort may pay off and the many ways it will not pay off.
4
My wife attests to the fact that ather hospital, virtually all young Docs, nurses and pharmacists wants single payer or something very close
5
It's not just about the billionaires, it's about a rigged system in favor of the entitled 10%centers & the castes being defined by tech data mining.
2
Finally some fair and sensible commentary about why Wall Street and the wealthy oppose Warren. Thanks, Dr. Krugman. It's about time someone pointed out the self-interest of the top 1% or even the top 10% . Or, as Sanders says, who needs to be a billionaire? We don't need them.
5
perhaps the blowback from Wall St has to do with the populist rhetoric that Warren uses. of course you would feel threatened. She sees little value in Wall Street or healthcare companies that make profits. She wants to break up all the big Banks. I ask then does that cede global banking to the Chinese who will have the largest Banks? If we want to withdraw from Global competition, then go for it. - shrink all our big corporations. We will all then be happy buying Samsung phones instead of Apple phones. This is Trump economics that we can just all live on our own little island here and make everything we need ourselves. we will all just be a bit poorer in this vision. Also do we all really want a VA system for all?
1
@Ron K
I ask, and be honest, for 50% of America who is struggling, what are corporations doing other than providing jobs that don't even pay a living wage? Like great, the guy working in the cellphone department at WalMart who can't pay rent?
I wish Wall Street could just step aside, enjoy their money and let businesses go back to thinking about something other than pleasing shareholders. Like paying their employees enough to live.
3
THANK YOU. Why is this so hard for fo many to understand? A lot of our problems in this society would be greatly improved if jobs actually paid living wages.
3
What is messed up is how much we tie the financial health of our country to how the markets are doing. I was speaking to a Trump supporter who kept prattling on about the stock market doing well and what a genius Trump was. He was poor, underemployed and living with his parents, struggling to find work. With no investments. Not even a 401 K. I was like, so you see benefit from the Stock Market? Which is doing well, meanwhile, the bottom 40% of Americans have less disposable income than they had in 2008. Health care and housing costs continue to outpace wage gains.
I don't understand why we have been brainwashed to think the economy is booming, when most of us are struggling more than ever to cover basic needs. Wake Up. It is booming for the 5%, maybe 10%. Everyone else is either drowning or just staying afloat.
3
It's either higher taxes and regulation now or pitchforks and torches at their doors later.
The thing that billionaires really do not seem to understand is that inequality has reached a level where the latter in the above statement is a whole lot closer than they might think.
4
When you've experienced a lifetime of fawning praise and have been sold seats of power from every administration of the past 100+ years (yes, including Obama), the slightest hint of criticism feels like horrific oppression.
3
I think that Elizabeth Warren shows such hostility toward Wall Street and large corporations that it is only human nature that many turn against her. I view her as a very divisive and thus dangerous candidate even though I agree with many of her ideas.
1
Warren seems to me to be one who can help make things better for everyone. Even billionaires who will pay more will benefit from a better quality of life for the masses and addressing environmental issues
2
They can't take criticism because they are not human. They are monsters. We should not and can not apply rules of humanity to these billionaires.
Finally a good article about the reality of the economy unbalance from Krugman.
1
Millionaires as well as billionaires are still people, human beings with all the flaws that define our species.
They are frightened by the same pitfalls which exist for all of us, allowing them to have an appeal, albeit limited, to almost anyone.
They should be taxed and taxed heavily as their bank accounts only accrue thanks many more who share and benefit from a small fraction of the wealth generated.
Fair is fair and our present economic system with Wall Street as its' vortex is far from that.
I am a conservative Republican, and amazingly I agree with much of this column. I have little sympathy for Wall Street. Like the government they do little to nothing to increase the overall wealth and well-being of society. They are takers, not makers. Like the government and lawyers, their systemic controls allow them to gouge society for a much larger share of the pie than they have earned. Thus it comes as no surprise that Obama was sympathetic and in league with them. They are his kind of people.
1
I say right on! Warren my hurt the delicate feelings of Wall Street, but it's about time they stopped being coddled at our expense. I remember her original sin of trying to force banks to tell the simple truth to their customers. The horror! The horror!
3
More clarity from Paul Krugman. My husband and I are retired parochial school teachers who married in 1976, worked and raised a family now grown. I was the family CFO and watched as wages went flat and credit cards were foisted on those who wanted to get anywhere financially. I became very suspicious of financial institutions a long time ago, wondering all along who was really benefitting for all the money that was being negotiated whenever the topic was a mortgage or a car. My husband and I made it, still live simply, try to avoid copays deductibles, have children most of whom can’t afford a house, half of whom are still paying college debt after 10 years out. So the question still stands: Who’s benefitting? Thanks, Paul, for the clarity.
6
There are a few billionaires who are dishing out the criticism for billionaires who don't want to pay taxes. Two of them are from Finance. Soros and Steyer.
Other than that, no problems with this analysis.
6
Paul Krugman: "By 2005 or so it will become clear that the Internet's impact on the economy has been no greater than the fax machine's. PK in 1998.
2
@James Well, it certainly didn’t improve the balance between workers and owners, did it? There’s a lot more to economic impact than the shape of your telephone.
1
Certainly in Silicon Valley, they are snowflakes. And they fear being exposed as nothing more than money bags who produce zero. They sling around money and invest in technology without understanding the technology. They jump on the bandwagon of the best con artists and turn them into unicorns based on hot air. It’s truly dumb luck on their part that a few companies turn into successful businesses because most of the time it’s all about what’s fashionable... not what has a real business future.
2
Where are the responses from the snowflake billionaires (and their trolls) to Professor Krugman's opinion? The silence is both deafening and quite telling, it seems the Professor has struck a nerve.
3
Wall St., and the super-rich, in general, play not just the US population, but the entire world, for fools, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. And guess what? It works just fine! And has for many decades! Why wouldn't they bleat and whine like snotty brats when somebody even implies in passing that maybe some semblance of rationality or balance should be introduced into their long con? Their guilt and paranoia comes from the obvious fact that about 95-96% of them understand just exactly how guilty they are at gaming the entire system for their own shallow, greedy, destructive ends.
4
Why should I be taxed? Let them eat cake.
Dear Dr. Paul,
A Nobel winning economist speculating that billionaires are emotionally unable to handle criticism. About as useful as it is brilliant.
Hey, let's get Bill Gates a job at Walmart.
1
What would we do without Krugman?
1
Approximately 2 1/2 seconds after economists finally figure out how to distribute money equitably . . . We will still have the energy problem. . . We will still have our health problems . . . The average American life span will still be declining. Well . . . If you have a bean counter culture you can expect bean counter results. . . I wonder if Americans can ever stop arguing about who should get the money?
2
> denouncing Warren for her failure to appreciate all the wonderful things billionaires like him do for society.
I’m pleased to inform you that there is a science of economics for studying production for a market. Its not a study of the allocation of society’s resources. That’s Marxism. In this science of economics, there is an entrepreneur who initiates production. Tragically, however, there is no automatic production, no Garden Of Eden, no mystically inFormed Allocator-Kings, armed with statistical seances and the guns of bureaucrats. There is only man's independent, focused mind.
2
@Abe Nosh: Entrepreneurs perceive existing demands. Inventors try to create new demands.
3
@Abe Nosh Right, obviously political economy doesn't exist. Good point!
If Wall Streeters were wise, they would be on the side of liberals. The NY Times did a story in 2008 called "Bulls, Bears, Donkeys and Elephants." The Times found that $10,000 invested at the beginning of the Hoover administration and kept in the market (S&P 90, S&P 500) only during Republican administrations would have grown to $11,733 by October 10, 2008. That $10,000 would have grown to $300,671 if invested in the market only during Democratic administrations. As of last Friday, the numbers are $14,187 (Republicans) and $848,112 (Democrats), an epic blowout for Democrats. 99.5% of the cumulative market index gains during this time period have occurred under liberal administrations. And it is still an epic blowout for Democrats if you subtract Hoover.
Stronger regulations and better oversight of the financial sector, along with more progressive tax and labor policies, are better for the country and, yes, Wall Street too.
5
@Jon: Virtually all financial crises hinge on disruption of the flow of money to meet scheduled obligations. The public sector can coerce money to circulate through thick and thin to speed recovery from these disruptions,
1
I enjoy Paul Krugman’s pieces, and I know they are opinion, however, I may be missing something. I read the letter written by Leon Cooperman to Senator Warren. No where in the letter did I see Mr. Cooperman “flying into a rage” as Krugman describes. It is a position letter, based on his perspective, that appears to me to be an attempt to show his perspective to Senator Warren. He doesn’t like her position, and makes it clear in the letter, however, he doesn’t call her names or demean her position. Rather, he uses data to support his position. I’m rather disappointed in this article. Mr. Krugman is an extraordinarily intelligent writer.
It could be I’m just growing so sick and tired of the consistent and ever increasing name calling, belittling, tribal mentality. While an opinion piece is a chance to share an opinion, I feel it shouldn’t cherry pick quotes and use demeaning language. The NYT has always struck me as a “civil place” for discourse. This is not civil writing.
4
did not say cooperman flew into rage. said aseness did.
1
Despite the hyperbole, The rich pay a disproportionate percentage of taxes, though I could make a case that (given trends in mobility) they should pay much more.
I spent 30 years around Wall Street, managing funds that served everyday people trying to put their kids through college and save for retirement. I think I did well by my clients - I beat the market for 28 of 30 years, and lost money for those middle class investors just once. In my very best year, i pocketed a handsome sum (but just 5% of the fund’s revenues), despite having limited help from the organization.
I think I did some real social good, and I paid a lot of taxes, which I don’t regret.
But big business is based on extracting disproportionate shares of good deeds, and more could be done if that were not so...
Which probably suggests things are more complicated than they first look. So-called “Wall Street” is not a monolith. And some people (and even some firms) do, in fact do good for the everyday person.
And the idea that it should be “burned down” in it’s entirety is wrong. It’s sad that the dialogue has become black and white.
Change is needed, but it need not be burnt down.
The polarization is destroying America.
5
I’d have a lot more sympathy if I wasn’t working all the time yet still unable to afford the dental care I desperately need.
3
The rich may pay a disproportionate share of taxes but they also earn an even more disproportionate share of income. Quoting only the first half of the sentence is an old but tiresome trick.
8
Despite the hyperbole, The rich pay a disproportionate percentage of taxes, though I could make a case that (given trends in mobility) they should pay much more.
I spent 30 years around Wall Street, managing funds that served everyday people trying to put their kids through college and save for retirement. I think I did well by my clients - I beat the market for 28 of 30 years, and lost money for those middle class investors just once. In my very best year, i pocketed a handsome sum (but just 5% of the fund’s revenues), despite having limited help from the organization.
I think I did some real social good, and I paid a lot of taxes, which I don’t regret.
But big business is based on extracting disproportionate shares of good deeds, and more could be done if that were not so...
Which probably suggests things are more complicated than they first look. So-called “Wall Street” is not a monolith. And some people (and even some firms) do, in fact do good for the everyday person.
And the idea that it should be “burned down” in it’s entirety is wrong. It’s sad that the dialogue has become black and white.
Change is needed, but it need not be burnt down.
The polarization is destroying America.
2
I felt that a lot more could have been done to protect homeowners during the Recession. I was very disappointed that Obama didn't manage to force banks to take lower payments from homeowners until they found work again or some similar legislation. Especially against the predatory lenders, who knowingly risked their money. They should have lost it, not been propped up.
It's really a shame that the American people still can't see who their real enemy is. It's not some 'other' who doesn't look like you, worship like you, or love like you. It's not someone from the 'other' political party. It's not even those who espouse hateful rhetoric and bigotry.
No, the real enemy of the American public is big business, big banks, and the oligarch class. The guys who buy our politicians to keep those of us who work for a paycheck from ever getting our heads fully above water. They love it when we mistrust each other for those superficial reasons. Makes it so much easier for them to take more from us.
6
With all due respect to Leon Cooperman he really should keep his mouth shut at this point. I read his letter in its entirety and it is as infuriating as it is tone deaf.
I am an immigrant, I went to the same grad school as he did, some 40 years later, and I work on Wall Street. His letter doesn't resonate with me one bit and he does not speak for me or my peers. Way to miss the point of EW's message entirely, Leon. A son of a plumber gone to an Ivy gone to Goldman gone HF manager... an unimaginable feat for sons of immigrant plumbers of today for sure. My generation graduated with six figure student loan debt into the worst economy of our time, and we had no liquid assets to take advantage of the rebounding markets in the decade that followed. It took us 10 years to repay those loans and not even. While the rich were getting richer, we were seeing rents and real estate outgrowing our incomes and opportunities to advance evaporating every year.
This is not about demonizing people like Leon. This is about the fact that the Leon wannabes of today don't have the same opportunities, they don't stand a chance really, because of how lopsided the system has become since.
5
I don’t think they have fragile egos. Psychologizing doesn’t explain greed, nor bad judgment. The snowflakes, as you call them, financiers—and some economists—are, in fact, lousy economists. They simply don’t know what they’re doing and are living with operational objectives and no principles. Or what they know and how they act is faulty—same thing. An economist without principles (“moral sentiments,” I believe they’ve been called) probably shouldn’t be called an economist at all, as so many in finance do call themselves.
1
I'm a big fan on Paul Krugman and I agree with a fair amount of his commentary within this article. However, I am disappointed in his irresponsible assault on Leon Cooperman, a person I do not know and will likely never meet. Reference to Cooperman's legal troubles is fair game, but the rest of Krugram's attack on Cooperman is unfair, misleading and feeds directly into the narrative that the NY Times is as biased to the Left in it's political commentary as Fox News is for the Right. Krugram's statement that Cooperman's letter was "embarrassing, self-pitying" prompted me to click through and read the actual letter to Warren. Whether one agrees or disagrees with Cooperman's positon, the letter was anythng but "embarrassing" or "self pitying". I found it to be an articulate, albeit misguided, assessment of a series of complex and divisive issues. Most importantly, the letter was written as an overture to Warren to debate these issues. It was not a personal attack on Warren but a challenge to her ideas. Bottom line: this is exactly the kind of dialogue Krugman and the NY Times should be encouraging rather than disparaging. I’m afraid Krugman missed the mark on this one and should apologize to Cooperman for using his coveted platform in such a Trumpian manner.
3
Elizabeth Warren gets her economic ideas from French economists at Berkeley who are deliberately basing policy on inaccurate data to drive their redistribution/class warfare strategy. Their dataset belongs in a recipe book for Pow Wow Chow, not in the discourse of credible economists. That Wall Streeters call this out, does not make them hysterical.
2
@TL The only ones waging class warfare are the American oligarchs of which Mr. Cooperman is one.
2
Same reason as our Mad King.
Exact same reason.
1
Excuse me, but there is another factor fueling the hate. Warren is female. Many, many, especially older white males in the financial industry have a major problem with that. Remember Hillary?
5
A lot of people had a problem with HRC. Reset Button anyone?
Republicans have been screaming to "drain the swamp." Well, my Republican friends, your prayer is answered. Elizabeth Warren will do it for you. No problem! Oh, wait, oh, sorry, you didn't really want to drain the swamp? That was all said just to get elected? You really wanted to fill the swamp with your own swamp creatures in order to rule the swamp and get all the fish? Well, at least that's cleared up.
6
I would like to see Elizabeth Warren turn to Donald Trump in a debate and tell him not to be such a snowflake. I feel sure she is the person to do it. And that's what Hilary should have done!
When you have enough money to hire people to make more money for you, you start to think you are some sort of "blessed" person. And we all know how much damage the "blessed" can do.
Wait until money is worthless... this will happen soon..
2
Vast wealth, fragile egos, shallow souls
please retire the phrase "wall street excesses" when talking about 2008 crash causes--it sounds like they had one two many 3 martini lunches, not systematic regulatory capture, fraudulent risk ratings and predatory loan practices.
2
Got a degree in Econ & Finance and spent my entire career in the industry. Drew a lot of supply & demand curves, and no wedges between them due to finance charges on both ends. With their bankers standing behind them egging them on people have driven housing prices so high they're unaffordable for more people now than when Freddie & Fannie were created, and a burden on us all.
People use credit cards like cash now, as a medium of exchange, yet pay though the nose for the privilege. Why? It's a medium of exchange, so why doesn't the US Govt treat it that way, like cash, and provide that service for free?
People use credit instead of savings now, savings the Fed would offset by expanding the money supply, but when hard times hit, bankruptcy and economic collapse are instantly upon us. Why not save for that rainy day? Because the banking industry spends billion on ads that make credit seem so much sexier. How is this different from 1960s vintage cigarette ads?
We are WAY, WAY past the sweet spot where finance helps the economy. It is a parasite that is killing us, the middle class and wealth equality. It must be reined in as surely as the military-industrial complex, and Warren, a nice girl from Oklahoma, is the one to do it.
369
Roi Joi, I have worked in the financial industry for a quarter century, but as a translator. I totally agree with your thoughtful analysis. I can’t believe the idiotic and immature things I hear from grown men in the sector, especially in the United States.
49
@Roi Joi: Only a small fraction of currency is coined or printed anymore. Most of it is electronically inscribed in computer memories.
10
@Roi Joi : Thanks for a beautifully written, insightful post (very helpful for those of us with limited, or no, knowledge of the field).
32
Williams Jennings Bryan said "It is useless to argue with a man whose opinion is based upon a personal or pecuniary interest; the only way to deal with him is to outvote him." The Trump Presidency has done the country a service by revealing the modern Republican Party for what is based on the policies they will actually support or tolerate. They will tolerate deficit spending as long as it benefits their donor class the "malefactors of great wealth". They will tolerate any level of public impropriety and violations of the Constitution as long as it benefits their party. Their protestations about due process and the rule of law are empty rhetoric "a tale. Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,. Signifying nothing."
4
"Now, human nature being what it is, people who secretly wonder whether they really deserve their wealth get especially angry when others express these doubts publicly."
One turn of the screw and the majority of these unself made men would be struggling to pay for their meds.
Wallowing in self righteousness they sell their souls to greed and worship a crooked lying grifter-in-chief.
4
How to get this message to the people in the red states that vote against their own interests? I'm serious. I don't know the answer.
If Mr. Krugman can have that effect, in addition to writing to those whom already agree with him, then we can have some progress in this country.
3
The rich should fear paying a little bit more in taxes less than they fear the torches and the pitch forks. When the latter come out, there is no Plan B. It is game over for the rich at that point.
2
Next thing we know those snowflakes are going to insist on getting attention as members of a dissed minority group: the 1%, of course. Poor little Wall Street, up against the wall.
2
This is a useful corrective to Steve Rattner's piece. Despite his party affiliation, Mr. Rattner toes the Wall Street line.
2
Amen! Go get 'em, Lizzie!
1
I hope all who read Rattner's rant against Warren in the Times today read this article and connect the dots.
2
"No, the really intense backlash against Warren and progressive Democrats in general is coming from Wall Street."
Case in point:
https://nyti.ms/2PNm0jk
1
@Mikeweb: Everybody on the Street likes it the way it is: when the Feds find fault with management, the shareholders pay the fines and hardly anyone gets jailed.
3
What is legal in America is what should embarrass and shame Americans.
Corrupt crony capitalist corporate plutocrat oligarch welfare built America primarily via black African enslaved labor working on lands and exploiting natural resources stolen from brown aboriginal First Nations pioneers.
7
Steve Rattner's recent NYT Op-Ed is a perfect example of fat cat pretending to know economics.
According to the WSJ, "Rattner, a former investment banker who reached No. 2 at Lazard, was one of the administration's wealthiest officials. His financial disclosure put his net worth at between $188 million and $620 million."
2
I love the title. Yes, those pesky snowflakes coming on the scene to announce that winter is coming soon. They will blow (or is it huff and puff?), and will try to chill all they touch.
1
What is the essential difference between the extremely rich and the rest of the population? It certainly isn't the brilliance of their thought or their godliness. In fact, if you dress up a redneck yahoo in a $6000 suit you would have a rich man. Tevye's dreams were not for something different, just a more gaudy existence. F. Scott Fitzgerald was not right. It would be only expected that the rich would want things to be stable in their favor.
2
Krugman for president!
A welcome antidote to Steven Rattner's UnWarrented diatribe this morning.
Not knowing many billionaires, I keep wondering why they are as they are. One would think their greatest fear is of becoming impoverished. They seem to worry mostly about money, but actually they do seem pretty impoverished in the ways that really count.
Note to the Times: the banner for Rattner's opinion gives it editorial support; it is saddening to suspect that this was not an accident. You can do better. If both-siderism is your choice, your journalistic standards are too low; it is one thing to give voice to both sides, but something else to display editorializing banners as prominent set pieces.
3
I am also 'with her' just unlike those here I am not prepared to let the Russians win and betray the woman who DID beat Donald Trump but was cheated by Trump, the Russians bots and a corrupt electoral system.
It is Hillary Clinton we are talking about and she needs to sort this mess out and run as is HER DUTY! The DNC need to get a firm grip and clear the field of Putin's assets all running to destroy the American system. The 'progressives' are 'Russian assets' just like Assange or Tulsi Gabbard. Whether they mean to be or not they function as such and should be treated accordingly. So many here are clearly defending the radical (Warren), the treasonous (Tulsi Gabbard) and the socialist (Sanders) all of them 'weaponized' by the Russians and helping Putin make Trump POTUS Again.
Why does the NYT write these articles and then leave the comments section open to be filled with 'asset' comments?? How is that any different to what Donald Trump and FOX do? Enlisting hostile comments to push your anti DNC narrative when it is the DNC who are the only organization that is patriotic and puts the US first (both the Trumpists and Progressives not only push 'divide and conquer' tribalism but both push 'identity' politics which is EXACTLY what Putin wants. A divided, confused Nation. His evil genius constantly out maneuvers his and Russia's enemies. Trump is a now wounded tool of Russia but his plants in the Democratic party are even MORE dangerous. Hillary or Biden (pro US) ONLY!
1
One reason the fat cat bankers and blood-sucking vampire squids of wall street are in such a flap spin is they need the votes of the ignorant masses and this is how they scare them up to vote Republican. Their survival depends on myths and lies about "bad" government, "good" private sector, Commies, alien abductions and assorted conspiracies, and above all religion. That and they have to look in the mirror every day and want to like what they see there. On the other hand, many doctors really like people.
1
Why can't financial tycoons respond to what they consider is inappropriate criticism? Leon Cooperman's response to Warren's attacks was on the mark and collegial.
1
It is time to restore the phrase "robber barons" to the lexicon. I mean, that is what these Wall Street guys are, these hedge fund and money managers, people who grow obscenely wealthy for wealth's sake alone, without contributing anything to the betterment of society.
Where would we be without them? Probably a lot wealthier, and certainly living in a much fairer society.
7
@Dr. Planarian: Much of "hedging" is betting on Federal Reserve Bank interest rate policy.
2
Wall St. knows how to defend the Wealth Care System.
4
Another reason they hate Warren. Unlike the preschool-level understanding of the financial markets possessed by the current White House occupant, Warren possesses a profound understanding of their machinations. Witness how her blistering questioning about routine banking fraud conducted under his watch wiped the smirk off the face of the (soon after "retired") Wells Fargo CEO Tim Sloan during the October 2017 Banking Committee hearings (available on YouTube).
Yet another reason she is the hands-down best candidate to represent the interests of the vast majority of Americans. If only they'll dial down the furious right wing media gaslighting and pause long enough to listen and comprehend.
9
@Phillip Usher: One of Hillary's worst mistakes in 2016 was failure to exploit her paid education by Wall Street as a gift of insight into its issues, attitudes, and follies.
We highly educated Dems from rural areas find it absolutely exhausting that some highly educated metro Dems don't understand that your speech needs to be adjusted for your audience. There's a reason that Trump's simple messaging is so strong of course. Win. Sad! Great Again. "Look at your 401K!" His casual tone, (faux)confidence/confident delivery, toddler vocabulary and hyperbole make it all very effective. Intelligent dems should structure their message differently. Holy mother of Flesch-Kincaid just keep it simple.
3
Since the 1980's the finance class has been relentlessly pushing to move out of what they are. Even with things like Michael Miliken, the 87 crash, and all the events that have happened similar since those years, these people's real time identity just keeps popping back up in their own faces.
Not all people who move money around are bad folks. I'd point to Tom Steyer, who lives a model life and truly is doing something positive while he is here on earth.
But ever since the Reagan years Wall Street and the GOP have tried to put up an intellectual wall about what they are doing that's as fake as Trump's "wall" with Mexico.
We are not supposed to question Wall Street. We have a new religion introduced to us by "The Chicago School" courtesy of Milton Friedman--"The Magic Marketplace." An integral part of that magic entails not asking questions. Especially of the wizards behind the curtain...
6
@Walter: They don't even understand the limitations of their axioms. "Efficient Market Theory" applies only where all costs of products and services are priced into owning or hiring them.
1
Thank you for this column, Mr. Krugman!
The Finace industry are often the bookies in the latest scheme to extract Profit out of nothing!
Nowhere is this more apparent than the Health sector, where insulin always affordable, has become unaffordable for many!
1
Many on Wall Street are overpaid and the carried-interest loop hole should be closed in 2009! Tax capital gains like ordinary income! But politicians want villains to campaign against, not practical ideas to increase government revenues. Warren's wealth tax has been tried (at much lower rates) in Europe and all it produced was new tax avoidance, flight to other countries and much lower then expected payments! Sweden, Denmark, Austria, etc all ended their wealth tax because they didn't work. A wealth tax requires a massive new bureaucracy to establish values, and even then part of revenue has to be set aside as a potential rebate, in case the value declines the next year.
3
Two words: white fragility.
2
@Odo Klem Whose?
The tycoons may be moral or immoral but many of them did not come from wealth, and that is why they are unhappy.
You may not like the fact that they as a group have so much and there is less middle class then in prior decades but it's not all built on family money.
This is pretty much impossible in most other countries, there are not many rags to riches stories in the European countries.
The ability to do this is uniquely American.
They may need to pay more then they presently do, but they are just the biggest target of issues in the United States.
Many in the white middle class have gone down because they refused to see the writing on the wall, and have not moved forward from the 1950's.
They thought forever they would be able to work factory jobs while they were disappearing overseas.
And even those who went to college took the easy route of business or liberal arts.
Easy credit meant many living a leveraged lifestyle and giving their children an easy life, which they could not really afford, and giving their children an illusion of work and paying for traveling teams and such that will never lead their children to a scholarship or such and not pushing their children academically.
The parents addicted to the Housewives, instagram, facebook etc
Those ancestors that came from Italy, Germany, England, Ireland, Scotland etc would be ashamed of many of their progeny.
It's the complacency of the white middle class that has lead some of them to drop lower or out.
2
Blaming the rich is the one thing that populists, both left and right, agree on. Gotta wonder.
Good luck America.
2
I think that if you ask Wall Street, they will tell you that while they work hard, they doubt that what they do is actually meaningfully beneficial for society, and certainly not in accordance with magnitude of their compensation.
They know this but will never acknowledge it publicly. And its because what they really believe in, other than living well, is taking as much as you can, as quickly as you can, before the other guy does. Because that's winning, in the absence of a purpose-driven life. As much as they enjoy the trappings of a structured society, they'd much rather that someone else pay for that, because that is again, winning.
So to expect them to actually factor the welfare of other people and "society" (which is an imaginary notion to many of them) is a lot to ask. It's just not the way they're wired.
8
These greedy people live in a bubble. They have no sense of collective responsibility for society as a whole. After all-it is the very nature of our society that allowed them to become obscenely rich. However, these wealth hoarders not only do not want to share a bit of their good fortune - they want even more. At some point when is enough money enough? I guess for these people it's never enough. Republican opponents of Warren are already called her a "Marxist" which is a joke - but people out in the hinterlands, patching up their 12 year vehicles, working three jobs and going without medical care will be convinced that somehow regulating these companies and assuring they pay their fair share of taxes is somehow impinging on their "freedom". That is the truly scary part of this.
10
I’d have a lot more sympathy for the billionaires if I wasn’t working all the time yet still unable to move out if my parents house or get the dental work I need. It just makes my head explode when people in the same situation as I am continue to vote against their own interests. One of my family members kept trying to convince me to vote for Trump because he was “one of us”. One of us???? What exactly does a billionaire East coast real estate developer have in common with working folks from the Midwest???
4
Not too long before the first Trillionaire. Then what?
3
Years ago I remember reading one of Nobel Laureate Joseph Stiglitz's books which agrees with Paul Krugman: billionaires are a drag on the economy because the vast amounts of money they hoard CAN'T be plowed back into the economy fast enough for productive use.
I can't remember the statistics, but Stiglitz calculated that billionaires would have to spend something ridiculous like $10,000 every hour of every day to make up for the amount they've held captive. (That figure is probably way too low.)
11
That none of those fat cats went to jail for their role in the financial crisis, is good reason for them to be as wild-eyed as they like. They sure aren't going to pay for simply not making sense.
3
If I’m not mistaken, there are many NYT readers who are likely to have retirement accounts or savings managed by the same companies that are “never Warren”. Tell them what you think about that. Tell them your money can move. Tell your HR, if that applies, that their holding company is creating disparity. Email the board, the execs. Call your unions. Make some noise. Will it change the behaviors of these wealth divide promoters? I don’t know. But shaming-out the snowflakes feels better than apathy.
7
"What, after all, does modern finance actually do for the economy?"
It is remarkable that a professor in economics would make such a foolish statement. Expect a call from Oslo - I think they want their prize back.
4
Mr. Krugman, you flatter the investment bankers and appear naive! They are not so subtle as to have guilt which could be repressed. Their outrage if they don't get everything they want and more, is an effective strategy and has been forever. They preceded Trump in outrageousness is the best offensive defense. They just look and act smoother than the thug in chief.
Wall Streeters are simply infantile and greedy. Conscience plays no role.
5
@VMB They are not infantile, they are cunning and have bought and paid for almost every politician, both parties.
1
I think currently Wall Street mostly operates a casino and running a "skim" on the cash flow that passes through its hands. The benefit going to the skimmers and not the economy. The resulting benefits of the Trump/Ryan Tax Cut just drives this point home.
For about 10 years as a senior manager in a major US industrial company, I listened in on the Wall Street "earnings calls". I always amazed that the analysts on the calls always seemed to think they knew more about running our specialized business (based upon their analysis of our and other companies' financial performance and quarterly SEC filings).
The fact that these so-called experts lacked the actual technical and practical knowledge of managing/operating any of those businesses never seemed to be in question. I found to be more than bizarre as their "informed" opinion helped drive our stock price.
6
I am thinking , in my case, as I recently in my life, now almost 79 yrs. old, now that I have come into more money than I ever had, that my strict money management skills and methods of the past are loosening up; I have times where I do not think twice about spending money on things I really do not need. I sometimes get the feeling that I am addicted to my extra money like being addicted to sugar. I also think less about the needs of others. Maybe money is addictive ?
4
Cooperman's letter is quite a classic: self congratulatory, self important and really, really boring.
Cooperman claims that he will be giving most of his money to the Buffet/Gates Giving Pledge, to go who knows where, but, of course, increased taxes would be just "soaking the rich".
3
@Jim Remington Their foundations are more efficient than the government in distributing their money
@Jim Remington re: Cooperman: "He suggested that Ms. Warren should focus on income opportunity, rather than income inequality." So, sure, Senator Warren should drop all her plans and ideas and help the 1% to make more money, because they never have enough.
Here's what I don't get about Wall St.
Won't Wall St. be better off if 5 million US households don't go bankrupt over the next decade due to medical costs?
Won't Wall St. be better off if employers didn't have to pay outrageous out of control insurance premiums (excl. out of pocket) now topping $20,000 per year for a family plan???
Won't Wall St. be better off if households had greater buying power with more disposable income in general?
Won't Wall St. be better (e.g. via housing, stocks, birth rates etc) off if the average millennial and Gen Z household wasn't saddled with $600-1,000 per month in student loan payments?
Won't Wall St. be better off if the 50-60% of the population that lives paycheck to paycheck actually had money to invest and/or put into a retirement plan (that you skim off of anyway)?
Won't Wall St. be better off with improved infrastructure, for instance that could cut down on commuting times, which has been proven to adversely impact productivity?
Won't Wall St. be better off with major national initiatives on renewable and green energy capabilities, including exports, rather than lose ground to Communist China?
10
@Joe Arena Nope. Look at who made what, especially in real estate, during the Great Recession. And how did Holder, Summer, Geitner, et al suffer?
Something that doesn't seem to get much airplay is the yuuge financial incentives for Wall Street if Warren actually passes a massive complicated tax increase.
The demand to avoid, let alone evade, those taxes would be great.
I've been out of the tax shelter business for a long time but it will be the place to be if Warren's tax plan gets adapted.
She will need to implement a serious AMT that will prevent massive LEGAL avoidance of taxes.
From personal experience, it was a lot, LOT harder to avoid a 20% tax rate than a 35% or 45% tax rate.
1
Medicare would have wealthy detractors who would be taxed to pay for it which should not surprise anyone. The sticking point is public opinion which opposes the option to have private insurance. Taxes would inevitably increase for all, however a Medicare buy in might be the only way to reduce unsustainable health care costs. Progressive taxation is popular, fair and economically desirable. It meets both a social need for medical coverage while addressing unjustifiable health care costs to society. The issue is not just about fair tax policy but also the unfair of cost of health care. Support for unpopular government intrusion with into health care that excludes choice is throwing the baby out with the bath water. It is a non winner for candidates and will fail to garner legislative support for passage.
Medicare would have wealthy detractors who would be taxed to pay for it which should not surprise anyone. The sticking point is public opinion which opposes the option to have private insurance. Taxes would inevitably increase for all, however a Medicare buy in might be the only way to reduce unsustainable health care costs. Progressive taxation is popular, fair and economically desirable. It meets both a social need for medical coverage while addressing unjustifiable health care costs to society. The issue is not just about fair tax policy but also the unfair of cost of health care. Support for unpopular government intrusion with into health care that excludes choice is throwing the baby out with the bath water. It is a non winner for candidates and will fail to garner legislative support for passage.
And when do you think the Middle Class is going to have sympathy for the filthy rich holding their money? Like, uh, maybe never? Did I get it right?
6
It’s more than the money Men look at Warren and see their mother, teacher etc nagging them , telling them to brush their teeth and take their hands out of their pants and they seethe with resentment and embarrassment These men will never vote for the sort of woman who have come that far and it has nothing to do with policy Will our democracy die from male weakness?
5
Boo Hoo for insurance companies. They take your money,
just don't file a claim.
5
Sir, You are brilliant. I agree with you 98% of the time. On this one, you are just wrong. Prez Obama raised millions on Wall St., particularly in his race against McCain. Balance shifted a bit with Romney, which makes sense given Romney is from that world and knows personally a lot of the players. I'm from that world myself, and attended many fund-raisers for Obama with hundreds of attendees and millions raised, both in 2008 and 2012. The antipathy of the financial class towards Warren is honest, and substantive - she has forcefully advocated for a fundamental change in the underlying economic system which has driven the prosperity of this nation for 250 years. Not because of the CFPB - many of us supported that effort. Not because of the wealth tax - most of us are at worst unaffected, and at best supportive. No, it is because she is seen as seeking not just to reverse the pendulum swing toward income inequality, working/middle-class stagnation and social intolerance started by Reagan. Instead she is seen as wanting to swing the pendulum on another plane altogether. One which is, at best, an unproven and untested vision with the potential to badly damage or destroy the economic fabric which has knitted this nation together for the entirety of its existence (Part 1 of 2 - if NYT allows two comments from the same person....)
2
I deserve billions and trillions even zillions
My sniveling and forsaken minions
I’m worthy of it all
And not sharing my windfall
So keep quiet and mind your opinions
4
People who were born with a silver spoon in their mouth tend to be snowflakes.
2
@redweather
Leon Cooperman was not born with a silver spoon in his mouth. He is the child of Polish refugees, and grew up in the Bronx. He was the first in his family to attend college.
Everything he has is the result of brains and hard work, a concept that is alien to most "progressives," who think "progress" is defined as getting other people to pay for your stuff.
Most are not "snowflakes". They are gangsters. They have systematically looted the Treasury. The smart ones know that this ends in disaster. For them too. The troubling part is that the spots on a leopard only get larger. Ask FDR.
5
To the anxious Wall Street snowflakes ...
"Send not to learn for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee!" (after John Donne)
2
After just reading Mr. Rattner's whining article about Warren, here is the perfect antidote!
Krugman gives voice to exactly how I feel. How dare these "fat cats" rail against Obama. He let them off the hook, just as he let Bush and Cheney off of a different hook. You'd think they'd be grateful.
But no, they want more and more and more.
I say their time is over. What goes around, comes around. Now is the time for the lower and middle class to reap wealth from hard work. To not tread water for less money and more hours or taking an extra job to pay the mortgage or rent.
Elizabeth Warren wants to give the 90% a fighting chance. Where hard work will be rewarded. Where the game is not rigged against us. She has studied it through teaching bankruptcy law and later creating the Consumer Protection Agency which was a good start. Of course, Trump has gutted it which proves that it was working!
The movie Wall Street's slogan has come true. People believe that "greed is good". That's a problem.
2
These oligarchs can be (and such oligarchs in the past have been) knocked off their pedestal. The magic word is: corruption. And, they know it. And that explains their snowflakiness. The Dems need to keep hammering away at corruption: keep the message simple.
6
There is a name missing in this here... In fact that name is frequently avoided in MOST MSM (Fox and Rush, however, invoke it oft). Was there a memo from Corporate- dare not speak his name! Or Else!
And yet, he is always top 3. In the Times thing today he wins MI< WI< PA which is the key to Trump's overthrow. The rumor of his falling in polls is a myth (actually up a couple in the past few weeks, with Warren plateauing- for now- and facing fierce attack on her plans to come).
As I see it IA is just a mush. Warren 2nd in NH, but close. Distant behind Biden in SC. Best, a close 2nd in NV.
The way I see the script the moghuls want us to buy- establish Warren as the progressive champion. Then beat her down with doubts about complications. That said if it has to be a centrist best Biden. (if Mayor B, as he is a pro military interventionist, I vote Stein. Again. 2016 all over)
This column does CLEARLY define the Dem win strategy. For a century. Us agin the rich. But it is time to apply KISS.
Promise a "reform" making all income equal. Sweat and gambling taxed on the same rates table. Add in elimination of SS and Med caps and there will be plenty of money, without all the Rube Goldberg gears and gizmos that can break, to do lots of things with financial responsibility. Like really paying for it.
2
If 50% of doctors don't like the current system, why don't they band together and compete against the "medical industrial complex"? They don't because the 50% who think central planning and government monopolies are better tend to be the least effective ones. Like all industries, 20% at best are really good at their jobs.
2
Privilege has always been used to defining reality. This is a new experience for Wall Street and the 'boys' don't like it one bit. Now, sit down and be quiet. It's a new day...
6
The Wall Street bully boys seem to have limited historical perspective. It was Franklin D. Roosevelt who was our most radical President in terms of economic policy in our country's history and was called a "Bolshevik" by many in the monied class. His predecessor Herbert Hoover was undoubtedly the most successful businessman ever to hold the office of the presidency. His prescription for the Depression of a combination of waiting for the business cycle to turn, similar to past "panics," combined with individual effort was an unmitigated disaster. It was the "Traitor to his Class" Roosevelt whose radical solutions that were proposed and implemented was the one who really saved capitalism in the United States, and we are benefiting from these efforts to the present day.
6
"Wall Street’s Warren hatred has a level of virulence, sometimes crossing into hysteria, that goes beyond normal political calculation.
What’s behind that virulence?"
Killing the golden goose of medical care and messing with someones livelihood tends to rile people up.
2
They won’t like it but compared to Bernie Warren could be tolerable to Wall Street. I think as corporate profits shrink so will people’s 401ks but so be it.
With regard to Warren's plan: "it’s not surprising that people who couldn’t handle Obama’s mild, polite criticism are completely losing it over Warren" - Clearly Warren, a strong and intelligent candidate, has the well being of ordinary Americans at heart. Let's hope she wins and stays the course.
4
When creating our Constitution, the Framers were terribly concerned about preventing the President from becoming another monarch. So, they created three co-equal branches of government.
With all of their brilliance, however, the Framers did not anticipate the rise of the financial oligarchs -- the billionaire class, the one percenters -- in our country. It is these financial oligarchs that possess the real power in our country. Their influence is more subtle than, say, Ukraine or Russia. But they do control the levers of power. We have seen ebb and flow of their influence in our history, notably during the presidencies of the two Roosevelts. However, the growth of the conservative movement over the past several decades, and the resultant gutting of the middle class in favor of the 1%, primarily through favorable tax policy, has been figuratively and literally supported by the Koch Bros and their ilk. Politicians such as Sanders and Warren represent an existential threat to their continued dominance. When the existing power structure is threatened, expect a vicious fight to preserve the status quo. Snowflakes, indeed. It may take another Great Depression to see meaningful change.
2
@NWIndep false reading of history. The founders believed the property owning class should make all of the decisions. They anticipated those with great wealth (ie Jefferson, Washington, etc) had much by today’s standards. They just didn’t trust those without property to vote. Many distrusted capital and many of the federalist anti federalist debates were based on this. This country was founded by the 1% for the 1% in an attempt at egalitarian self rule.
1
@Steve Your argument is incorrect.
Even at the founding of our country, while the rules varied from state to state, not just white male property owners were allowed to vote. Far more than 1% the population were qualified to vote even under the most restrictive laws of the day.
1
Warren has the courage to take on Wall Street. As she rises, Wall Street turns to Buttigieg to defeat her. This is exactly the corruption that Warren is talking about. We'll never defeat corruption if up-and-coming politicians accept money from big wigs. (And don't forget, Buttigieg and Zuckerberg are good friends.)
218
@Ed If you are so sure politicians are corrupted, why would you want to give up a huge market for them to control as a true monopoly enforced by coercive laws?
3
@Ed No, intelligent people supporting Mayor Pete is not the corruption Warren talks about. You are extraordinarily naive if you think politicians should not accept campaign support from "big wigs." And there is absolutely no factuality to the statement "Buttigieg and Zuckerberg are good friends." Maybe Zuck simply prefers a sane candidate.
11
@David Ed is not saying that all politicians are corrupt. Look at who sends them money to see who is in the tank for Wall Street.
21
The disparity in a what a billionaire has and what most people have is so incredibly vast that it’s hard to get one’s mind around it. Billionaires bank on that when they appeal to working people about the “unfairness” of progressive taxes or anything that would cut into any minute fraction of their embarrassment of riches. Rich in money, real estate and connections, they are morally bankrupt. Their cupboard is bare of shame.
2
Interesting point on Obama. At the time I was working for a commercial bank and people, naturally, assumed I at least leaned Republican. Besides the occasional racist rant I was surprised by how unnerved people were at the prospect of an Obama Presidency. The bond traders especially. Most of them were seeking jobs soon after anyway. And, of course, were dead wrong.
140
@David Dolbashian
I was wrong, too. Based on his campaign promises I didn't think Obama would choose to sit at the feet of Robert Rubin and Paul Volker and sell out the middle class as he did. Silly me.
16
@ellen1910
A lot of people voted for President Obama thinking that they would get a democrat; what they got was a moderate republican.
Many of the Obama haters never seem to understand what was going on. I think they hated him solely on the basis of his skin color. They did not know squat about his policies but anyone and everyone could see him on television and tell that he was black.
I liked President Obama and wish that he was still President. Given the divided congress and the obstructionism of the republicans, he probably did as well as anyone could. At least he could give a coherent speech and he was well mannered and polite. You could tell that he had quality up bringing.
Best wishes.
37
@David Dolbashian
And what's especially ironic is that they are benefiting from Obama's economy
27
The argument that the financial industry provides the "useful" service of allocating capital has long ago lost merit. While a small portion of the financial sector does provide this service in large part investors and the financial industry have been in service to their own capital. They have reaped huge rewards and garnered an out sized portion of our economy without actually contributing much of anything to it. Hedge funds; and program traders are good examples of investors with out sized capital at their disposal that have been able to game the system for their own advantage while contributing nothing to the real economy - except perhaps when they buy their planes and yachts.
6
You would think that companies would rejoice with Warren's proposals to remove the burden of their cost of health insurance away from their bottom lines eventually and thus being able to better compete with all the foreign companies that don't have this expense. Isn't after all the business of business, business?
2
What people are properly afraid of is not a tax on billionaires. Instead, we are afraid of the constant barrage of attacks on those that have a little money who are scooped up and declared to be “rich” simply because we have scrapped and saved our whole adult lives and have accumulated a little nest egg to live on in our twilight years. We are the people who worked 60 hours a week, paid off our mortgages (we now have wealth in the form of house equity). We are the people who deferred compensation and plowed what we could into 401ks (where we have wealth because of gains in value over the years). We are the people who answered to the man for years and years as salaried employees while paying taxes to federal and state governments, taxes for social security and taxes for Medicare, with no access to deductions and write offs. We saved and we paid. We are now vilified for doing the very thing that responsible people should. We got and get nothing for free. Our entire goal in life was to save and not be beholden to the state or our children. Yes, by smart and frugal money management we have accumulated a little “wealth”. We should be celebrated and looked up to. Not vilified and lumped in with the billionaires. By taxing gains before they are realized and by taxing each and every stock transaction, Warren will be doing just that.
2
No argument that the middle class who played by the rules, saved, paid off mortgages, saved money and now move into retirement should not be threatened by a change in the rules to punish such behavior. But, I think, Warren's goal is to tax the super rich, and justly so.
5
50 million is not a little nest egg. I think you are safe on this one.
3
@Retired Hard Worker Nobody is vilifying you and your ilk. Your self-congratulatory post is a humble brag at best. So you were fortunate to be employed in a career for your working years. But your message is very disturbing in that you clearly have no idea of who will be taxed for our health care reform. It is folks like you that identify with your corporate overlords that are holding our society back. How about dropping your victim mentality and taking a moment or two to reflect on the actual destructive forces brought on by our current state of economic inequality?
1
Correct. Citizens United and the abuse of money in our elections is right up there with climate change as needing massive reforms to protect our democratic republic. It's disgraceful that corporations are running our country. My vote becomes diluted.
7
I watched Leon Cooperman crying, and I mean literally crying, on CNBC yesterday as he discussed how "unfair" Elizabeth Warren's proposed so called 2 percent billionaire's tax. Whether one thinks the tax is a good idea or a bad idea, the look of a poor me billionaire whining about it probably moves more people to support the idea than vote against it.
9
Is Warren frightening?? This is to some degree a subjective issue apparently.
Because she is a woman? No, not the gender issue at all with me. I do not find Nancy Pelosi frightening at all, but reassuring. It is not the gender issue. I also find Bernie frightening and of course, like most people of all political persuasions, I find Donald Trump frightening. Amy Klobuchar does not frighten me; Pelosi does not frighten me, Elizabeth Warren definitely does frighten me. She may reassure some people, but definitely not me.
1
Paul, you are overthinking this. Simple version: when you have this much money, people suck up to you. You live in a bubble of sycophancy. It's a shock to the system when someone tells you you can’t have anything you want.
7
Facts
1980 High tax rate 50%
Corporate tax 36%
Corps paid 35% of fed taxes , now pay 11%
280 corps with billions in profits paid no taxes
Many Hedge fund guys pay less then 15% taxes
400 billionaires have more money then the rest of the 90 %
US taxes some of the lowest in the world. most countries pay more, lots more.
Revenue is way down and debt is increasing faster then ever
These are facts folks.
7
Thank you, Dr. Krugman. I'd only add that the financial industry seems to include a lot of control freaks (remember Masters of the Universe?) who absolutely hate anyone putting limits on them, regardless of what the limits might be.
3
We live in a world of two realities. One knows much of what Krugman says is true, the other screams and calls it fake news.
The billionaire, Wall Street and GOP narrative that taking care of the rich first, having no environmental or other regulations is good for all ... and such an approach will help the average citizen have a better life.
Most of us know the GOP and 1% line is pure nonsense.
The other narrative is basically the opposite, truly helping the little person with health insurance, education, social security and other supports is the better way.
And high taxes on the rich is also fair, because they make their money only occasionally due to their creativity and efforts, but they also always make a vast amount of their money from tax loopholes, bailouts and subsidies ... and much off of countless peons that haven't seen a real wage increase in 40 years.
We need to vote for those who care about the well being of others, not just their own.
9
@dre Wow, some YOU have decided the rich don’t earn their money. How did you come up with your GOP narrative? Please tell us whom you are quoting.
What constitutes a "fair share"? Should someone who has worked their entire life and contributed to society pay the same taxes as someone who has inherited their wealth (either through birth or marriage)? Should creators and inventors pay the same rate as middlemen or agents or bureaucrats with the same net worth? If a doctor is worth 5 million dollars, should she be taxed at the same rate as a sports star who's "only" worth $5M because he squandered his fortune? The top 1% pay an effective tax rate that is 3-10 times higher than the bottom 50% of the population. 1/2 the populations pays no federal income tax. This entire discussion will go round and round until we define 1) what is a fair tax rate to pay, 2) what is valuable to society and what is not, and 3) whether those who have profited from things that are less valuable to society should pay more in taxes than those who actually contribute to its (society's) betterment.
1
@p pow exactly. Progressives need to stop telling me that I’m not paying my fair share at 37% plus state tax and payroll tax. By who’s definition isn’t this already enough? If the government can’t solve our problems after taking almost half of my money then they are as ineffectual as I believe them to be.
I'm sorry, do you have an estate of 50 million or above? Then you are not subject to the wealth tax. It blows my mind to hear people who can't understand the vast difference between the merely comfortable middle class and a billionaire. It's not the same ballpark is not even the same sport
2
@Danno $50MM is not a billion and my estate is not the point of what I wrote. I do understand numbers, very well. What most don't understand is that "fairness" is in the eye of the beholder. There are only 600 or so BILLIONaires in the USA. So, even if you liquidated ALL their assets (assuming on average they were worth $10B each) and redistributed it in 2020, you'd barely pay for a year or three of Warren's plan. What to do after that? Keep ratcheting down what is "fair" so eventually everyone is taxed? That is what they do in the EU with a (regressive) VAT. And no-one in the EU ever complains about what the government is providing.
Railing against generic "billionaires" is popular and i think most Americans would agree that our tax system is unfair and that billionaires should pay more. There are two kinds of billionaires, however. There are those like Bill Gates who are giving much of their wealth away and then there are those like Cooperman, who feel that they are entitled not only to massive wealth but that we should thank them for all that they have done to create that wealth. What's more they feel that they cannot be criticized no matter what.
We should commend those billionaires who give back and feel a social responsibility. Entitled billionaires who feel that they are above criticism deserve or scorn.
2
Most of what the financial industry does these days I call "tax code engineering." They find ways to lower the cost of capital by manipulating the tax code to their benefit. Very little value created for society at large.
3
The med. earner is missing thousands of dollars per year---money they would have if wages had kept up with this "booming" economy.
That should be the headline on a regular basis.
3
Prior to the 2016 election I watched a round table discussion involving a dozen multi-millionaire entrepreneurs. Interestingly, none of them thought of themselves as fortunate winners in dog-eat-dog world of American capitalism; they all thought of themselves as victims. They hated being called greedy and accused of not paying their fair share. What was unfair was the government taking a big chuck of the money they'd worked very hard to accrue; they hated the idea of their tax dollars ending up in the pockets of people who don't share their work ethic. They thought of themselves as underappreciated job creators and seemed to believe that charitable contributions absolved them of civic responsibility.
Obviously, not all wealthy people share the sentiments expressed by this particular group, but for me the discussion seemed a vivid snapshot of the virulent brand of zero-sum capitalism that has taken over this country; we produce a small number of winners and a great many losers.
7
Remember, 99%: The wealthy and the powerful teeter on that pinnacle. They need the public for labor and votes, but they will throw us under Putin's tender iron wheels in a heartbeat.
They are not immovable; in fact, they owe their very seeds of wealth to the secular republic that nurtures and supports them at every step. They know this, and hate their fellow Americans for even looking askance at their piles of personal money.
One example: Wayne LaPierre, fabulously wealthy from the sale of war weapons for killing children, whines to republicans when the public cries out. He has all the millions of valuable dollars he can spend, and he STILL cheats and clothes himself ever more richly. When the next elementary school is bloodied by his product, he'll run to trump and whine again.
They can't be responsible citizens cuz greed, and they aren't forced to be responsible cuz trump's greed, and they won't be disciplined for hurting America because dollar dollar bill, y'all.
3
@deb :"Remember, 99%: "
When all is said and done it won't just be the 1 percenters the mob comes after.
Unless you live in NYC or SF for it's well known that it takes at least $1,365,767.39/year just to squeak by as middle-class.
1
@deb Remember 47% - we know you don’t pay any taxes.
@Jackson, remember 47%, some people like Jackson don't understand the difference between INCOME tax, an obvious smaller amount for poor people, and rent increases (for poor taxpaying landlords), sales tax, SSA taxes, state/local taxes, etc. Why do you people insist that the poor pay for income they don't make? Second, notice that NO rich person thinks the tax incentives of poverty are cool. No one wants downward mobility so they too can be a lucky ducky. Judger.
4
"Even if Warren becomes president, the chances of getting Medicare for all through Congress are small."
Then why stress so much on it? That will only reduce her chances.
Elizabeth Warren is so good in debates. If she phrased it differently people wouldn't be scared. She doesn't have to keep on telling, "Middleclass wouldn't pay a cent in higher taxes. I won't sign a bill with higher taxes on the middleclass," and so on. She can't be that sure of anything.
With her amazing skills, I thought she had an excellent chance of becoming the first female president. After Hillary Clinton's loss, if she did play her cards right, women, including Republicans would vote for her en masse. But women of all stripes should feel comfortable to vote for her candidacy.
I have this aching feeling that with her radical agenda, she will reduce a woman's chances of capturing the presidency. Hillary Clinton was a highly flawed candidate. Now Elizabeth Warren's radical plans. If women had any sense of loss with Clinton's loss, Warren's radicalism could signal them, 'let us face it, women can't hack the American presidency'. That's an assault on femininity.
And we wonder why our pension plans are going broke. We allow a group of skim scam artists to take us everyday. The 401 skim scam is a great example. Just think what these skim scam artists would do with our Social Security. At least the internet skim scammers hide their faces. On Wall street they stand proud and publicly fleece us. How many good companies are going to be strangled by these skim scam stalkers, companies that employed thousands and produced something tangible.
2
@george Whose pension plan is going broke? My 401k is doing quite nicely.
Healthcare for all has a different ring to it than Medicare for all.
Lose the brand name Medicare and let 'health' not 'medi' be the prefix of 'care'.
Health is everyones concern.
4
@GRAHAM ASHTON : The word "Medicare" brings along with it the baggage of Part B premiums, Medigap insurance, IRMAA surcharges and co-pays.
Doesn't look like that's the plan but anyone who understands Medicare is wondering why they chose that name.
2
"What does modern finance do for the economy?" This is the best Krugman quote to date (which is saying an awful lot). At this point Professor if you do not know then how telling -- hmm, let's see, well capitalism, credit, risk management, and global trade are all made possible by it. Global growth and the level of wealth created comes from modern finance -- but if you hate it so much then do not get a mortgage, throw out your credit card, cancel your insurance policies and live on cash and see how well your life works. Your problem is typical of economists who have zero understanding of how finance works -- you have macro theory and zero understanding of market mechanisms or how capitalism actually works or fails on the ground. The "snowflakes" you describe are pushing back against ideas of economists like you who are proposing ideas that would be more at home with the politburo in '80s Moscow than any rational economist who has an understanding of how our economy actually works.
1
@michaelf What you are saying just goes to prove Professor Krugman’s point, exactly.
When Wall Street threatens Main Street with disaster if Wall Street isn’t allowed to rule, who will win? I’m betting on Main Street.
4
@Susan Main street works BECAUSE Wall Street works. Almost all cars "sold" are actually leases, homes "sold" have mortgages attached and insurance policies to insure them and when it comes to retire it the earnings from your pension or retirement fund that helped make that happen via the markets. That only happens because of finance and Wall Street that connects capital to consumers and businesses and makes starting new businesses or raising further funds to accelerate them and create jobs possible. Most people do not really understand it but of all people who should Krugman should, what is his excuse?
1
It is far time that these Wall Street folks be reigned in. Their "Casino Style" of business adds nothing of value to our society. In an era of stagnant salaries for the average Joe, I am amazed that people are not out in the streets with pitchforks in their hands. Even more amazing are the less well off folks that continue to support the Republican party. They are just bound and determined to vote against their own self interests. I am sure that this is a direct manifestation of our declining educational system. I guess by keeping folks stupid, the greedy are more able to pillage our economy. Things really need to change.
6
I have a family member who is a Fortune 500 CEO. He specializes in working with private equity to take over vulnerable companies, take the companies private, gut them, then sell the "leaner, meaner" versions.
He attended a meeting of fellow CEO's where Warren spoke. He was furious how she criticized them for the amount of money they made, for fostering wealth inequity, for stacking the deck in their favor while destroying unions and keeping workers off their boards.
He considers himself an "innovator," an "iconoclastic disruptor," who loves how his ego gets stroked through philanthropy.
He literally was aghast that anyone could criticize him.
Go Elizabeth. Melt them all to the ground. #Warren2020
11
Another commentator expressed bewilderment as to why so many white working class folks continue to support Trump when he has done nothing for them.
Its really not all that complicated. Through his tweets and rallies and Fox news he just keeps telling them over and over again that he hates the same people they do and they love him for it.
3
Wasn't it Eisenhower who said "nobody needs a billion dollars"?
6
@Billy
Yes, but that was when a billion dollars really meant something
1
Why can't they take criticism? Because they have fragile, childish egos. Why else do you think they have to act so tough and macho and "Ruler of the Universe"?
4
All that the middle class suffers now is due to the trickle down myth and Reagonomics. We need to take our tax rates back to the 50's when America had the capital to invest in infrastructure and the government wasn't running on a deficit. This will allow the feds to repay Social Security, and allow us to provide medical coverage for all who need it. The government also needs to reign in it's military spending. Recall that most governments fail (or are beaten by others) when they are militarily over-extended, which we currently are. This site gives an interesting table of debt and deficit of the US since 1930.
https://www.thebalance.com/us-deficit-by-year-3306306
3
@Aundrea I wonder, does anyone want only a "trickle anyway? Isn't that what we used to have, a trickle? Someone set the bar way to low for those who work and support the others who "run things." Without those who work every day, say everyone stayed home for a day, a week. EVERYONE!!! In the whole world, what would happen? Would we get more than a trickle?
@Aundrea No, the middle class isn’t suffering. Apparently you have no idea what the effective tax rate is.
Perhaps guilt, after all, Leon Cooperman attended Hunter College when annual tuition was $0.00.
1
Thank you, Paul Krugman! You nailed it.
3
Thanks for speaking truth to power.
2
Disgustingly immoral? Coming from Wall Street? Sounds to heartfelt and authentic.
1
Well, as Governor Le petamaine says in Blazing Saddles, "Gentlemen, we have to protect our phony baloney jobs." For the most part they are parasites who contribute absolutely nothing to society. They place bets and move money around shaving a few cents off of each transaction for themselves. Quantity, not quality.
1
It's simple. Money corrupts. Greed corrupts. Power corrupts...absolutely! The poster child of this triple headed corruption is our so-called president. When tiny shreds if guilt surface, the gnashing of teeth ensues. The self loathing of these worthless people (to the overall good) is so clear. But they and their money are dangerous. Sad
3
They fear Warren because Warren cuts through their propaganda like a knife through butter.
3
Hooray for Paul Krugman- tell it like it is!
3
These Wall Street billionaires remind me very much of underperforming, overpaid professional athletes who rage when confronted with their inadequacies.
But another major reason for their rage is the fear of losing control of the Democratic party. The old "party of the people" has become the party of Wall Street since at least 1992. It was Wall Street that decided to deregulate the banks and it was their candidate Bill Clinton and other Democrats who followed their instructions and joined the Republicans to do it. It was Wall Street that decided to save the banks and the criminal banksters and their candidate , Barak Obama who followed their instructions and not only saved, but enriched them beyond their wildest dreams at middle class expense, and then followed their instructions to save our corrupt cost-increasing private health insurance debacle. And it was Wall Street who chose the only candidate who could possibley have lost the election to the idiot Trump rather than lose control of the Democratic Party.
1
Case in point... read Steve Rattner's op-ed today.
"She'll damage rather than improve our economy."
Oh, please..
2
Of course much of the media promotes the interests of billionaires.
The laughable puff piece 60 Minutes led with early in the year, giving an utterly undeserved sent-off for billionaire Howard Schwartz's campaign to be president is an example. He had no qualifications or ideas beyond "we can't really do anything" yet the show gave him the "soft focus" treatment to try to make him look credible.
Fortunately by weeks end he was tied with "polling error".
2
Steven Rattner's op-ed article today, "The Warren Way Is the Wrong Way," represents the views of just one snowflake among many.
It should surprise no one that he is currently "chairman and chief executive officer of Willett Advisors LLC, the private investment group that manages billionaire former New York mayor Michael Bloomberg's personal and philanthropic assets."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steven_Rattner
1
in the book "The Psychopath Test," Jon Ronson discovered that many men in the finance industry scored high on it... perhaps there is a correlation of fragile narcissists as well?
2
There is a very simple answer. They despise the concepts of socialism and income redistribution through taxation which Warren continuously touts. To many, she is the anti Christ of capitalism. As her far left views become more extreme and absurd, reality will set in for the liberal left that she is unelectable.
2
The excessively acid tone of this piece detracts from it‘s impact. It should be possible to argue your political position without sniping.
1
...but he is spot on
Poor little rich people. We should set up a Go Fund and help assuage their angst? They have it sooo tough don't they?
I listened Leon Cooperman on CNBC yesterday, and the amount of self-pity he emoted was....amazing. Such crocodile tears. Poor little snowflake indeed.
Tax 'em Warren. It's time that ilk learn to take one for the team. Tax 'em so much they can't afford that second Lambo,or that 3rd penthouse off Central Park East. Make 'em sweat.
John~
American Net'Zen
3
@John
Bitterness & jealousy is not a a sustainable political philosophy.
Hats off to the truth.
3
In 1756 a Frenchman wrote that Americans “are dollar fiends” some things don’t change.
2
Hey Wall Street, you're smart, you'll figure out how to make money, even in a Warren administration. So, stop complaining already!!
3
Regarding snowflakes, at what point did criticism become become truth by definition?
If you've taken part in any recent discussions about race there is a pattern that has emerged.
A blanket statement is made with respect to white people (many times phrased as "You people...").
A response is sometimes provided pointing out how the statement was incorrect.
The responder is then accused of being defensive.
Take a look at some of the activities occurring within the NYC Public School leadership.
"What this means is that you should beware of Wall Street claims that progressive policies would have dire effects. Such claims don’t reflect deep economic wisdom; ..."
What Krugman really wants to say is: "How dare Wall Street challenge Elizabeth Warren's position!".
Take a look at some statements made by Elizabeth Warren and progressive policies. While meeting with striking UAW picketers at the GM Detroit-Hamtramck Plant among the things Warren said were:
“G.M. is demonstrating that it has no loyalty to the workers of America or the people of America,” and “Their only loyalty is to their own bottom line. And if they can save a nickel by moving a job to Mexico or to Asia or to anywhere else on this planet, they will do it.” (NYT, Sept. 22, 2019)
Did you read that Krugman? Don't ship assembly jobs to Mexico - lots of deep wisdom there, right?
No response other than "yes" is allowed otherwise you're being defensive and a snowflake.
I would pay to see or read a conversation between Mr. Krugman and Steven Rattner, who wrote critically of the Warren economic plan in yesterday's paper.
2
(Part 2 of 2). So why not Biden? Because he was Obama’s VP? Absurd. Obama is revered by a majority of the financial class. Trump not so much. Fact is, sadly Biden is diminished. One thing money brings is access (which is a different, albeit related, problem). But that access has shown Biden is not the horse to ride if you care about the long-term future of this country. So if Biden is out, and Warren and Sanders are seen as existential threats not just to the financial class but to the country as a whole, where do you turn? Hence Buttegieg. Mostly, the financial class is foundering - we want a credible, viable, centrist candidate who can compete. I’ve not boarded the Mayor Pete train yet myself. I gave money to Harris early in her campaign, but she has imploded. Klobuchar is credible but utterly without charisma. Beto never got going. For caring Americans who hate Trump and want to see policy swing back toward economic, social and environmental justice, the credible choices are, in my view, uninspiring. I would sacrifice a body part for Michelle Obama to join the race. But that, it seems, is not happening.
1
Most economists would also see Warren in the same light, but alas our Krugman is partisan activist, economic theory put aside.
The Senator is anti corporation, she is anti business. And she has dishonestly used a fake story on her heritage for personal gain her entire life. She is a fake.
“You didn’t build that” is all you need to know. Tell that to Samuel Slater who not only built his roads but a school as well.
2
"What this means is that you should beware of Wall Street claims that progressive policies would have dire effects. "
I'm going to go read the Steven Rattner piece now. And laugh.
2
There’s probably a lot of male ego involved too. “Masters of the universe” as Tom Wolfe called them, don’t like being crossed by a tough “little lady” who once taught school and managed to become a professor at Harvard Law School. A guy with a Harvard degree, a bit of combat experience and time at McKinsey is more their style. Like Obama, he might not really do anything terribly too disruptive to their game.
3
Even the NYT website, this same day Nov 4, prominently featured Steven Rattner's self-serving whining about Warren: "Her big-government plans would damage rather than improve our economy....Many of America’s global champions, like banks and tech giants, would be dismembered."
Anybody remember 2008? Yep, me too. Fool me twice? Nope, not this time.
3
White male billionaire patriarchs can't stand uppity women or Blacks. They somehow think that their wealth confers to them a superior everything - intelligence, character, even soul. They isolate themselves in enclaves that reinforce their smug self assurance. Trump himself has referred to himself as divine. Unregulated, scantily taxed capitalism creates Trumpism - seething contempt among Oligarchs for the intellectuals who see them for who they are and slavish rubes who worship billionaires as a model to aspire to and maybe one day become.
3
The reason they can't deal with criticism is that they never hear it. If you dispense seven digit bonuses to your staff, you will be surrounded by boot-licking sycophants.
3
I came to this column right after reading Steven Rattner's attack on Warren's proposals to rein in, inter alia, private equity! Of all things.
The Warren Way Is the Wrong Way
By Steven Rattner
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/04/opinion/medicare-warren-plan.html
Not long ago Rand Paul criticized Krugman. Krugman's reponse was headed “The Zombie That Ate Rand Paul’s Brain”. Pot calling the kettle black?
1
The financial industry in its current state is an abomination that sucks the rest of the society dry. I will even take Medicare for All if it means we can have a president who sticks it to these leeches.
The rest of America doesn't even know what's going on. My wife read an article about the Fed injecting $21 billion into the repo market and I found myself trying to explain how modern finance works to her. She and many educated Americans still think it works like the quaint fractional reserve banking system that is still described in textbooks. But no--these financiers will find a way to drain every last penny from everyone else, and gloat about it.
2
Can we stop with name-calling already?
2
Psychologists label this narcissistic rage.
1
The tyranny of the .01% in an age of Citizens United is total. Most people aren't really political....some are. This is often not related to a person's finances.
The few of that .01% will wield unusual power. Mercers, Koch, etc can pay for long term "foundations" and nurture a whole group of dependent people, with a goal of installing them when the time is right. Our Courts are an example-but for Trump, the Right wing wouldn't have their current pipeline of unqualified conservatives, and but for this installation, he's not have as much evangelical support.
We may expect to hear from the same folks who have kept selling Trickle Down every ten years cry about job destruction....those same jobs they can't pay $15 for.
3
Old as I am, the truth is older still.
It's been 1600 years since St. Jerome first blew the whistle on this topic when he observed that "Opulence is always the result of theft, if not committed by the actual possessor, then by his predecessor. The superfluities of the rich are the necessaries of the poor. They who possess superfluities, possess the goods of others."
In the current U.S. context, legally enforced domination (and oppression) of labor actually exceeds possession of goods as a superfluity of the very rich.
Make no mistake; I'm not jealous of the very rich because, by my own standards of value, I'm one of the richest people I know. All my basic needs are satisfied with sufficient left over to offer some help for the less fortunate.
In that I can confront the truths of my mortal experience:
1. Most of it was not about me, but rather, the lessons and the hope I can do better next time.
2. From Oscar Schindler's story:
>The girl in red (I'm still haunted by a similar experience from my 11th winter.)
> His guilty lament: "I could have done more."
3
Hi Kirt,
Where did you get that St. Jerome quote? It’s brilliant!
Cat
@Cat
I couldn't recall the entire quotation so I searched Google for:
"St. Jerome on Opulence/quotes"
While the excesses of the financial speculators did bring on the start of the financial crisis of 2008, they were not the primary cause. Let's look at all the financial crises the country has ever had. Before 2008, there were 6, in 1819, 1837, 1857, 1873, 1893 and 1929. ALL of these were preceded by a period in which the country practiced "fiscal responsibility, i.e. the federal gov spent no more than it took in and paid down the national debt more than 10%. These periods were 1817-21, 1823-36, 1852-57, 1867-73, 1880-93, and 1920-30. The debt was paid down 29%. 100%, 59%, 27%, 57%, and 38% respectively.
Th federal deficit measures the amount of money the federal gov sends to the private sector net of taxes. A surplus tells us how much the gov takes OUT of the private sector net of spending. In the above periods private debt exploded as people turned to banks to get money. The banks became overleveraged and failed.
In the 1990's our trade deficit grew, becoming larger than the federal deficit in about 1996, so money began flowing OUT of the private sector. This situation continued until 2008 except for a brief period in 2003. As in the previous 6 cases, private debt exploded, the banks became overleveraged, and began to fail. Only the fact that we had a FED able and willing to pour TRILLIONS into the banking system saved us from a 1929 type depression.
But the result was not much fun.
3
U.S. income inequality has become so obscene that it's time for a paradigm shift. Senator Warren has sound proposals for restoring basic fairness and equal opportunity in our country. Of course special interests are going to oppose her.
11
Each side has its villains: for the right it is the socialists who want the government to run their lives; for the left it is the Wall St. "fat cats". I fear that when it comes to competing narratives, the electorate will stay with the status quo and not the visionary policies of Warren and Sanders. We will have four more years to lick our wounds.
In so many other countries, people have the things that Warren and other “far left” progressives advocate for, and these countries have economies. If these countries’ progressive social/economic safety nets were really such a drag on business there, wouldn’t they just pack up and leave?
We need politicians that are going to call Wall St’s bluff. There is no reason we can’t have affordable university, affordable healthcare, parental leave, and so on… like the Dutch, the French, the Germans, and so on.
6
Not being a billionaire myself, I don't see the reason for their panic over Warren's plan to tax the rich at 2% of their money over their initial 50 million? They would hardly notice it, unless, like Scrooge McDuck, the more they have to roll around in the better. They've had 3 years to maximize the money and investments,and will have a 4th soon. Instead, they bought up their stock, made virtually no investment in expansion of their businesses or created jobs, and have paid little taxes. They have to feel the growing anger by the rest of us and sense the likelyhood of a big backlash
6
Wall Street's biggest concern about Warren is that she understands them and the markets better than any other candidate in either party. It is her knowledge, particularly of their vulnerabilities, that make them angry and scared.
What other candidate can talk their language and debate them at their level? None. She sees the "man" behind the curtain and and he isn't the wizard at all.
11
I think it likely that the demonization of Warren by Cooperman, Asness, et al. is due to the fear that she is a near existential threat, i.e. that she will in fact be the Democratic nominee and could well win a general election against Trump, and lead us down a slippery slope of economic populism and a political environment where the very legitimacy of free market capitalism is questioned. And just as the fear of Warren is largely based on the fact that she might win, the migration of socially liberal but pro-corporate Wall Street donor money from Biden to Buttigieg is due to the perception that Biden is ultimately a flawed candidate, a stock that should be shorted.
1
I usually enjoy reading Mr. Krugman's opinion articles. This article, however, is yet another that, unfortunately, contains a major fallacy: human nature. A couple of days ago, Maureen Dowd had an opinion article on the Katie Hill saga. There she used the "human nature" meme to justify her advice to millennials that they should censure their exposure to compromising personal data. In essence, she said that ill-intentioned people poised to reveal ugly facts about others will always be there. Human nature compels them to do so. In this article, the reference to this intellectual prison is about undeserving rich people who lash out at those who point out their undeservedness. At its core, as these two use cases demonstrate, human nature references the innate evilness of human beings. As such, is has to be subdued in order to have a civilized society. In my opinion, thinking there is an obvious tendency of humans being innately wicked and at each others' throats if not bound by law is an argument to be made (Thomas Hobbes). But, please, don't use this unquestionable intellectual bludgeon that is "human nature". Nature, in this context, means that it is an immutable truth. It also insinuates that people who don't acknowledge it as such are naive as they don't accept its inevitability. If you think human wickedness is innate, then show it and don't use an intellectually lazy notion like human nature.
I strongly suspect that Ms. Warren's anti- Wall Street message will have significant resonance beyond just democrats and that it will make inroads with some portion of the Trump faction as well. It's a somewhat complicated message, but Ms. Warren has the time to sell it given there's a year to go before the election. And the first thing she needs to make the right wingers understand: who the 'elite' truly are, and that it sure isn't some liberal college professor in New Hampshire.
5
Nobody likes to be reminded that a good deal of what they have “achieved” began with an accident of birth, especially those whose identities are all wrapped up in how much money they’ve amassed.
3
I agree that many on Wall Street know they have acquired a fortune doing nothing of any social value and perhaps doing something of real social detriment. So, they are indeed touchy about it.
I do not support Warren, but raising the highest income bracket to at least 50% and taxing Capital Gains the same as earned income is just basic common sense.
5
"Why can’t financial tycoons handle criticism?"
Krugman has a long history of insulting many people.
Would he just be silent if he were to start receiving many public criticisms that could hurt his reputation?
1
Being critical is insulting?
1
@RP criticising perhaps but not “insulting”. Still snowflakes may see no difference.
1
Elizabeth Warren's tax proposal doesn't really affect everyday person. But it will increase tax and close loopholes for the rich. And I favor that.
Her healthcare proposal does affect everyday person. And it will reduce my monthly healthcare payment. And I favor that.
I don't care about Wall Street mongos. To me, they are too rich and too powerful. Unless they can do something really good for the country, they should bear their social responsibility more and care less about their own welfare.
15
Maybe they just realize, like many of us, that the government has failed in its original purpose of protecting our rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, and now is the real enemy of the people. Someone like Warren, in the name of fairness, will accelerate us toward tyranny as surely as Trump's cruelty.
1
They are a group of highly entitled yet insecure people. And feel that what they have they deserve rather than see their good fortune for what it is. Right time right place success. And greed is good to them as any sense of moral compass has been conditioned out of their behavior if it was ever there in the first place
5
One of the more memorable quotes to emerge from the financial crisis of 2008 was Lloyd Blankfein's, CEO of Goldman Sachs. He claimed that he and his fellow CEOs in the financial industry were doing "God's work." Which meant, of course, that any politician criticizing the conduct of The Industry was taking on God, Himself. The one true religion in America is the one Stephen Colbert called "Money-theism." Critics, therefore, were heretics.
Doing God's work in Money-theism consists mostly of making the rich richer, and politicians were expected to acknowledge His Profits and to abide by His strictures.
In fact, the financial industry, as Paul Krugman notes, is largely a rent-seeking operation that skims the profits off of the productive segments of the economy; impeding economic growth rather than facilitating it. Blankfein et. al. have taken it upon themselves to ensure the poor will always be with us. Blessed are the rich and powerful. Thus sayeth the Lloyd.
9
Democrats need to do a much better job at explaining the dire the issues facing our country and marketing their ideas, and how they will benefit everyone, even though they require upfront investment from the top 1%.
Attached to every policy needs to be the following:
1) Consisely explain the problem we face, particularly explain the cost/consequences of doing nothing. Cite 3-5 top factoids; Eg on health care the cost of doing nothing is 5 million US households will go bankrupt over the next 10 years from medical bills, we as a nation will spend nearly 60 trillon on on health care, and the average US household will spend $20,000 -$30,000 per year between insurance premiums and out of pocket, nearly 50% the median income in this country.
2) Hammer home how Republicans have failed to address these problems. Bonus points if you point out how the major lobbyists/K street donors are fighting you and supporting the status quo.
3) For each of the factoids above, simply point out the difference your policy will make on each (eg eliminate medical bankruptcies, reduce the average family health burden by $3,000 per year, reduce overall health spending by 7 trillion etc).
People will get distracted and lose focus if you get caught up explaining the intricate details and deep technical aspects of implementing these policies. For instance, no-one needs to know a financial transactions tax will work...just say no-one making under $500k will be impacted.
4
Nothing new under the sun. FDR saved capitalism by curbing the excess of the twenties and set agencies and regulations which provide some kind of stability. We had recessions instead of crisis. And what he got in return: "Roosevelt rage". And do those "Wall Street Snowflakes" learn from 1929? On the contrary, they supported the deregulation of the finance industry and the weakening of the agencies by Reagan and Clinton. And guest what? Crisis was back with a vengeance in 2008. And guest what? The "Wall Street Snowflakes" still do not get it and will never get it.
7
Warren understands where the money is. And who is getting rich off things and why. And what this is doing to the public purse and those less fortunate. And she says so.
That is scary to a lot of people, particularly to a lot of people who donate big money to political campaigns.
8
It is well past time when people should wonder whether the ultra wealthy really deserve the wealth they routinely capture. "Capture" is the right word, "earned" is a joke. They may have captured their billions legally, but the people who actually earned it through creativity and hard work are well down on the list of the richest people in the county.
11
Wall Street wealthy are accustomed to being able to run amuck with impunity. See Great Recession of 2008. They don’t want to come under any rational control that benefits Main Street occupants.
9
It’s still hard for me to understand why those with so much and plenty to spare aren’t willing to share with those less fortunate in any number of ways possible, including paying greater taxes. We can’t all be billionaires and are they all happy because of it? But the power of greed and the “me and mine” ego are mighty and have been encouraged and fostered in this materialistic society.
It does take a different world view to realize that we are all interconnected and not isolated, separate selves. I’ll never forget a discussion with my friend years ago about why he should vote for a mass transit system in Seattle. But he wouldn’t because it did not directly benefit him, who commutes daily through downtown on the clogged freeway.
8
@Carolyn Wayland Yes. Exactly. The analogy I like is that if you win every hand, why won't you ante up to keep the game going?
1
In truth, if there were zero regulations on Wall Street, these financiers would be begging for them. They want and need regulations to protect the system from chaos -- and to protect them from one another. Stable economies are built on trust, and trust, unfortunately, must be codified.
What Wall Street suits don't want are regulations that protect the consumer from them, and they sure don't want their vast wealth taxed. It's their god-given due for being such superior human beings. How dare society insist that they contribute to the greater good.
8
Not surprising, when a husband or wife cheats on their spouse, they often become belligerent towards the spouse, pointing out all their shortcomings, all the things they do 'wrong', and the reason is quite simply the knowledge they know they are the one in the wrong.
The financial industry is sensitive because they know that they bear a lot of the responsibility for issues we face economically, the shareholder management driven often by hedge funds and 'activist' investors has led to where decision making is all about boosting stock price, and there is a cost to that. Stock analysts hate costs, and especially hate employment costs, and that is why jobs went to China across the supply chain, and why wages are not increasing. Add to that CEOs and other executives making 90% of their salary in stock grants, and it is toxic. Back in the day, CEO's were rewarded for making a good product and revenue and profit via cash salary and bonus, today they are rewarded for making stock analysts happy. The whole cut taxes/laffer curve nonsense is even more perverted now, the Trump tax cut, instead of creating jobs and increasing wages for ordinary people, went towards stock buybacks and dividends that basically made the rich even richer, while doing little for hoi polloi (if it had, wage growth and GDP growth would be >3%, well above it, not 2.0 or less).
7
"What this means is that you should beware of Wall Street claims that progressive policies would have dire effects. Such claims don’t reflect deep economic wisdom; to a large extent they’re coming from people with vast wealth but fragile egos, whose rants should be discounted appropriately."
Don't we have one of those squatting in the Oval Office?
11
I never understood why moving papers from one box to another earns millions.
13
See for example Steve Rattner's op ed in the Times today. Funny how Warren is painted radical--how is her platform any more radical than FDR's or LBJ's? Or even Nixon's (EPA, wage/price controls)? The taxes she is proposing are less than the taxes of the 50's. The pendulum has swung way too far to the right and in favor of the wealthy. Time for it to swing back.
21
They have to uphold the pretense that they are actually smarter and are good for our country. EW doesn't buy it, and they are threatened by the prospect that investors will start not buying it, too. Maybe people will just invest in index funds, will clamp down on their shady deals, and will recognize them as lucky, greedy, and lacking patriotism.
5
On the other hand, we are only talking about a few dozen whiners here, not some political movement. This would all be ignored if they were just a bunch of rich guys, but because they are major players on Wall Street or at least seem like that to Krugman and the chattering class, we have to hear about them. Their donations don't mean much these days and certainly they are not the kind of people whose open support will help you. How about we just ignore them instead.
1
Private power, public good : an eternal tension. Senator Warren’s plans basically aim to restore a productive balance, or relationship, between the two. Productive is the operative word here. Our current healthcare system is an example of a system sadly lacking in efficiency and effectiveness. We have
real-life examples from other wealthy nations that conclusively prove this.
Overall, our contemporary iteration of financial capitalism follows the same pattern. Witness the tax bill passed by the Republican controlled Congress. A glaring example of misappropriated resources.
Adding salt to the wound is the irony that many of the most significant advances in technology and medicine since World War II are the result of taxpayer funded research.
Senators Sanders and Warren offer the best case for readjusting the balance for a productive society. They have the moxie to make this happen. As Frederick Douglass said, “power concedes nothing without a demand”. The other candidates represent continuation of the status quo: overhangs of private debt or debt peonage, climate insecurities or catastrophes, inflated securities markets addicted to easy money, and restricted and/or punitive healthcare options.
8
Remember Occupy Wall St. after the near depression? They were right of course that the greed is good crowd had caused it.
But you can see that no lessons were learned, because under Trump the floodgates are being opened again. All sorts of schemes like cryptocurrency and blockchain are being floated along with 5g uber-surveillance Chinese style. Tech companies compete all over the world seeking low taxes and lax regulation. And with their huge profits they invest in the next big thing, whether its good for humanity or not as long as it beats the next quarterly numbers.
Greed is not good.
7
@EW: Agreed. Republicans are successful with simple messaging. Three or four words, repeated constantly, at the target audience via tv/radio/social media.
Dems need to take simple messages to voters they want to persuade. This time around though, the messaging must include simple civics lessons, e.g. the concept of co-equal branches of government, although this message needs to be a bit more lengthy, and kept at a 4th grade level.
2
"That which gets rewarded gets done."
I'd guess it's that a lot of VERY wealthy financial tycoons know they've "rigged-the-system" as best they could, cut corners where they could, etc., with the other mantra: "Better to ask forgiveness than ask permission first".
YOLO.
6
Well right as usual, but I'm not sure it will all matter. The "Medicare for All" focus by the Democrats will insure a Trump win anyway. I thought last time that Sanders was an egomaniac, but Warren has passed that goal post a while ago. She won't listen to reason and if nominated will make the debates interesting, but the independents and Trump Democrats won't vote for her and we'll be right back where we started, and if the Republicans take back the house we'll lose Social Security and Medicare/Medicaid. I guess the "progressive" Democrats will be happy though.
1
We were saying that about Trump vs. Clinton. He would never get elected because he’s a racist, misogynist, lying tax cheat. And here we are. I agree that many if not most of Warren’s ideas will never see the light of day, even if Democrats control both House and Senate. But why should only the red half of society be allowed to push for radical change?
2
I would not be surprised if those financiers who are politically sophisticated wind up supporting Senator Warren, secure in the knowledge that, in our money driven political system, her many "plans" for reform will remain just that--plans. Senator Sanders, by contrast, threatens to organize a mass movement of millions of young people in the streets, to truly demand reforms--and that is what the people on top really fear.
2
At the risk of sounding really naive, the point about those people with "vast wealth but fragile egos" may be a clue to any candidate's being better able to engage these fellow Americans as well.
There are also billionaires with healthy egos like Warren Buffet and Bill and Melinda Gates who see themselves as part of the solution. Our country has a history of those with enormous wealth donating to the common good.
Rather than making the wealthy the enemy, how can more of those who have great wealth be helped to see that they have a role to play in the greater good.
Young men and women who put their lives on the line to defend our country are often inspired by great leaders. How can those with vast wealth but fragile egos be inspired to
put some of their wealth on the line for their country and for the future?
2
When will Americans stop viewing their crappie employer partially funded health care plan as a life line and realize it is actually a ball and chain?
From here in Canada, that looks like socialism to me, while I fund my own universal health care through my taxes. Who really is showing more independance?
7
Well written and clear. I was leaning toward Elizabeth Warren before I read this, now I know I will vote for her. Thanks Paul!
10
Like Upton Sinclair said: "“It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.”
In the case of those financial tycoons, they hate anything that touches the rivers of money that go to their banking accounts.
10
Yes, the federal tax structure should be more progressive but Larry Summers and Cooperman make a valid point that eliminating tax exemptions and loopholes may be a better approach than trying to enact a wealth tax, which would be very difficult to administer and relatively easy to avoid. The wealthy and their lawyers are very good at tax avoidance. Why open up new opportunities for such shenanigans rather than closing down existing ones?
3
why not do both?
2
It's hard to imagine middle class people feeling sorry for the over-$50-million-income crowd, but somehow they do. I actually know people that make about $50,000 who speak critically of Warren's plans to tax the rich. These people have bought into the Republican idea that the rich drive the economy and so they shouldn't be taxed too much. The mega-rich's campaign against Warren will certainly succeed when the middle class accepts a role as protector of the rich. Maybe it's because lots of middle class people fantasize about being multi-millionaires themselves and don't want to be taxed too much on their imaginary wealth. It's part of their delusion. Lame reasoning, I know, but how else to explain the sympathy for the rich I'm starting to see?
9
Too many Americans vote againsr their own self interests ! These foolish people have fallen for Trumps Republican "Con", the continuous right wing, Fox news, propaganda assault, and now they will be paying a costly price! Seniors voting for Republicans who want to reduce their Medicare and Medicaid. Union members voting for Republicans who want to abolich unions! Veterans that vote for Republicans who want to abolish the VA !
3
See, for humorous example of the phenom PK is writing about, financier Steven Rattner's apocalyptic op-ed against Warren in..today's NYTimes.
7
Modern finance is no where as benign as a snowflake or even a blizzard. Modern finance is a parasite on the economy and it is not even a little symbiotic. Of course Wall Street is worried, they know they have been faking it for years and will soon be found out.
13
Concerning Biden and Mayor Pete. No doubt Wall St. knows Biden was willing to play ball with the banks headquartered in Delaware throughout his Senate career but may have a sneaking suspicion that when he talks about the trials his father went through during financial hard times he is being honest.
Buttigieg doesn't seem to have any core values apart from perhaps gay people being treated equally and that appears solely out of his own personal interest. He is just as like to support pro-Wall St. legislation as oppose it. Whenever I read comments by his supporters, I notice that mostly they mention they like who he is rather than any specific positions on issues. It amazes me how people can say they are torn between supporting him or Warren as their platforms seem so markedly different.
3
"What, after all, does modern finance actually do for the economy? Unlike the robber barons of yore, today’s Wall Street tycoons don’t build anything tangible. They don’t even direct money to the people who actually are building the industries of the future."
Wall Street knows that it is a vulnerable target. Wall Street speculators are the ultimate economic parasites. Very few ordinary Americans have a stake in defending their interests. In fact, much of the original Tea Party sense of betrayal and rage was generated by the perception that government bailed out the influential big banks while allowing small home mortgages to go under water.
After 2008 financial elites successfully threw a lot of money at creating a network of structures to co-opt and deflect Tea Party anger, but anti-Wall Street sentiment still flows beneath the surface. Not much would be required to revive it. One reason Trump succeeded is that he was perceived to be a maverick real estate investor, not a Wall Street banker.
Elizabeth Warren is especially dangerous because she is explicitly committed to reigning in Wall Street, understands its unpopularity and how to politically exploit it, and possesses the financial expertise to know how to approach the regulatory task. Wall Street has heavily invested in the Clinton wing of the Democratic Party and sees its welfare tied to the continued success of that faction. If Biden fades, Wall Street will look for a new champion to oppose Warren and Sanders.
5
"...there is growing evidence that when the financial sector gets too big it actually acts as a drag on the economy — and America is well past that point." This is the real reason that the Wall Street billionaires are so upset at Warren and Sanders, both of whom are exposing the financial industry for what it is, a "fake" economy. Our country is facing an extraordinary moment of hypocrisy exposure in the political and economic arenas. Fasten your seat belts.
3
Mr. Krugman nailed it:
"Now, human nature being what it is, people who secretly wonder whether they really deserve their wealth get especially angry when others express these doubts publicly."
Capitalism is both good and bad. In the good part, people do or create something useful and get very well paid to do it. In the bad part, people work the system and get mountains of money for doing basically nothing, while making the system work badly for everyone else.
They know who they are, and they know that they're skimming the fat off the land, stuffing up the system, and not creating anything useful. Those who make their money doing something useful, enjoy it. To the manipulators and skimmers, watch out. We're going to put an end to your shenanigans.
3
Of course those money pusher do not want to say they deserve to push more money in their pockets and fight Warren for this. they would be discredited. They attack her on what they think is her weakest spot, medicare for all but I believe that unless money will win again, they can lose big. My fear is that the mediocre middle of the road in the democratic party, the one that do not want to change anything or may be change party when favorable to their perspectives (see Bloomberg) will undermine her. In the end Pelosi that should have resigned long ago already said that she is not a fan of medicare for all.
So if I've got this straight, your theory is that Wall St. financiers are upset by Warren, not because she might separate them from some of their vast wealth, but because they have fragile egos, are unable to handle criticism, and in their hearts secretly wonder whether their accumulation of wealth has any tangible benefits for the rest of us?
I have a much simpler theory: greed.
3
There is still tremendous anger in the country against Wall Street. Hillary’s paid talks on Wall Street were one of the biggest knocks against her. Wall Street freaking out about Elizabeth Warren is manna for her election strategy. If she wins the nomination and Wall Street goes all in behind Trump, that’s just fuel for the fire.
Trump’s greatest strength is he can fight and win, no matter how deep into the mud he has to go. Trump’s greatest weakness is that he doesn’t know what to do with the spoils of victory. He doesn’t have (say it with me) “a plan.” At least not one that will drain the swamp and return power to American workers instead of Wall Street.
Taxing financial transactions on Wall Street is the greatest thing I ever heard of from Warren’s campaign. No one screams louder than a rich man separated from a dollar. The wailing on Wall Street can be heard around the globe. Let them weep and gnash their teeth! That way we know we’re on the right track.
3
I agree with your observations Mr. Krugman. I am sick and tried of Wall Street and Defense Street ripping our country apart for power and greed to support the upper ten percent while the other 90 percent struggle on all levels. Endless Wars, ludicrous costs for education, healthcare, and shelter. This country is falling apart much like it did during the days of the late 1920's. Teapot Dome has nothing on the coruption of the Trump era.
If Wall Street doesn't implode over the next two years, then I suspect we will be on a civil war status, thanks to McConnell, people like the Kochs, and the great Caligula wannabe, Donald Trump. Thanks Republicans. This country is near collapse thanks to your policies and obsession with money and profits.
6
This is largely nonsense. First, Krugman uses the term "Wall Street" as if it is some homogeneous economic leech made up solely of crafty and curmudgeonly billionaires who have bled the American middle class dry and who are now, collectively intent on stopping Warren.
This is the same tactic that Trump uses when talking about Immigrants. Refer to a complex group as a single entity, call out it's worst elements as representative of the whole, and convince people that their lives are in peril because of it.
Krugman does this intentionally, knowing that in reality billionaires and multi-millionaires make up a small fraction of the 6+ million people employed in financial services. The 5.99 million people who work in that industry and aren't super wealthy don't care a whit about the wealth tax because it will never touch them. They do however care about being demonized by the left just for working in banking, or asset management or insurance, or worse, for being successful at it.
The irony, of course, is that Krugman and Ms. Warren are guilty of the same hyperbolic hatred of "the wealthy" and "corporations" that he so quickly and easily lays at the feet of Wall Street. Ms. Warren has, time and time again, brought her following to a froth by doing exactly what Krugman describes here - level her self-interested attacks on Wall Street with "a level of virulence, sometimes crossing into hysteria, that goes beyond normal political calculation".
2
I’m pretty sure “Wall Street” isn’t shorthand for bank tellers and IT technicians. No one’s demonizing them, and they’re not publishing articles or making speeches with their knickers in a twist over Warren.
Many of the wealthy would have us believe what’s good for them is good for the country. Economics and history, never mind lived reality, shows otherwise. If Americans come to realize that in the majority, we can start at last to make a few changes over their objections.
4
Guess you didn't follow the link from the words "Wall Street". It's to another NYT article documenting how *Wall Street* is reacting to her candidacy with fear and loathing. Go get em, Liz!
3
Simply put, she's the greatest Wall St. antagonist since before there was Wall. St., Teddy Roosevelt can't even match her. Her achievements as a private citizen are unmatched.
Soon we will have a 24/7 highlight reel of Trump's years of sick hatred played along side the billionaires whining about her power. She is a force that has not run its course. In fact, I'd speculate she is much closer to the beginning than to the end.
2
So let me get this straight: The Wall Street banks refused repeatedly to underwrite Citizen Trump's casino loans, but now they're ready to give him four more years in the White House to monkey with the nation's financial system?
My guess is that earlier, the street didn't believe that Trump would pay his obligations, which he didn't. And this time they are comfortable that Trump will increase their already obscene profits.
You go, Elizabeth.
3
Wall Street's hatred of Warren should be the centerpiece of her campaign.
She can truthfully look blue-collar workers in the eyes and say that she's the last person Wall Street wants to see in the White House. Trump plays, in part, to those who feel left behind behind by the Obama economic recovery. They're beginning to figure out he's all talk and no action. Warren not only talks the talk, she walks the walk.
2
The Wall Street titans and bankers long ago had a fit about Warren when Obama considered her to head the Consumer Protection Bureau. After reading her ideas I knew then she was the one I wanted to be president a decade ago. She is extremely knowledgeable on banking issues and that is what really scares them. Her ability to tell it plainly is a gift. I so want her to debate Trump whose non answer word salads and name calling haven't the same power as 2016 on a weary jaded public. Now we just need people to awaken out of the daze and vote for their own self interest. Trump has only suceeded in raising the deficit and enriching the rich even more obscenely. It is not hard to see poverty all around and rising rapidly. I volunteer at food banks, homeless shelters and foster homeless teens and the numbers keep growing but the Republican party keeps redefining homelessness to pretend its shrinking. I hurt for our poor whatever party they stand with as they suffer mightily and have not been a part of the economic good times. Since Reagan we have lost 250,000 low income homes and only 1 in 4 who qualify get housing assistance. It makes me sick and angry these billionaires whine so much but please keep reporting on it as nothing makes people sit up and be appalled like greed. The poor need us and we are failing. In 10 years we will witness millions of our retired American seniors become homeless. It is the crisis not a bunch of whiny billionaires who manipulate the stock market.
6
Wall Street likes things just the way they are: much of the nation's wealth controlled by a few who also corrupt our government and let the devil take the rest. Warren would change that. Ergo, the GOP moneybags have decided that she cannot be allowed to win. Only us voters can help her change that.
3
They're snowflakes because, as you said, they've been treated with kid gloves for the last 80+ years. A sense of entitlement naturally develops. The pain of the 1930s, when bankers were literally jumping out of windows and ending their lives in disgrace, has long since been forgotten.
Politicians like Warren and Sanders wouldn't appear in the first place if bankers had played fair. Oh well.
2
No one should worry at all that Wall Street's dire warnings of financial Armageddon will come true. And rather than holding a grudge against Obama, they ought to erect a statue to him for not treating them like the criminals they are, and slamming them the way they should have been slammed for causing the Crash of '08. Have they ever stopped to reflect on how ordinary Americans were slammed by what they did? I'm sure they didn't give it a thought.
What Warren promises to do is a long-deferred reckoning that is well deserved. And if they were as smart as they think they are, they would realize that in the long run they should be thankful for any measures that restore balance and fairness to our economic system. When the majority of Americans begin to again share in the prosperity they help to create, there will be even more to spread around - including to these selfish billionaires. But like all those addicted to greed, they can't see beyond the nickels and dimes they aren't getting to hoard.
Had Obama delivered the justice they deserved, we might well not have wound up with Trump. There are consequences, even for billionaires.
3
An ongoing joke in my house is seeing billionaires bemoaning being less obscenely wealthy, and whispering "My God, those poor, poor, people!" I've come to realize that it can also be said without any dramatic sarcasm.
2
The recklessness, arrogance, and insatiable greed of the financial industry crashed the economy in 2008 and, with it, destroyed millions of lives and businesses. In the intervening decade, these people could have been a bit more circumspect in their pronouncements and their actions. Instead, they are more brazen, entitled, and greedy than ever. It is long past time for this arrogant, parasitic industry to be brought back in line with reality. They have spent years hollowing out our nation for their own benefit, corrupting our government with their financial influence, and creating an unimaginable level of income and wealth inequality. Scream and cry all you want, little boys, change is coming and it's long overdue.
2
Billionaires worry big time about losing their political influence with their friends in government. Buying politicians is one of their greatest sources of wealth. And if someone takes the presidency who wants to do something about it threatens their power and hidden and public wealth.
They pretend to be the friends of the people doling out a little wealth to their pet projects, but when push comes to shove it is me and mine and everyone else can go to the devil.
1
What Warren would bring to Wall St are rules. Real enforced rules. Rules that if you break them you face real consequences. That's something that's been missing for a long time
2
It is the Cinderella syndrome that afflicts the tycoons. They are afraid at the stroke of midnight they will be exposed as the grifters they always were. the Rolls will become a pumpkin and the tuxes will become rags.
They have nothing that they have done that has benefitted humanity.
They have not dug a ditch, plowed a field, comforted the sick and poor, found a cure, freed the falsely accused. They have done nothing but escape regulation and taxes to make money.
It is no wonder they fear exposure.
2
Sounds like they know deep-down that they are lucky posers who wouldn't be where they are today without a huge boost from their well-paid politicians.
1
Corporate titans are simply expressing their frustration that they cannot fool all of the people, all of the time.
1
Greed is a human trait for a good reason. Without an instinct for greed we would have a difficult time surviving in a competitive world where in some cases, one species has to feed on another species for survival.
But among civilized people greed is moderated for the simple reason that uncontrolled greed results in chaos, war, and all kinds of misery. So most people grow up having learned to control their impulse towards endless conquest and accumulation.
In the case of many people who gravitate towards industries like Wall Street, greed becomes the sine qua non of their lives. Their whole life is dedicated to ever more accumulation of money and power.
A relatively "poor" millionaire whose net worth is a bare 10 million dollars has more than enough money for himself and his family for the rest of their lives.
And yet there are billionaires whose whole life is dedicated to acquiring that next billion.
Greed is a disease that destroys the soul, and they know it but they can't help it. It is why they live.
1
Greed!
Narcissism and lack of empathy.
Who needs billions to feel fulfillment in life?
Perhaps pursuit of wealth mutates into a game after a certain success, or number of successes?
3
To the Trump sheep: If Trump had told you while he was running for president that he would take away a tax deduction you had for over 100 years (SALT), would you still have voted for him? You can’t trust the republicans at all, bait and switch all the time. Watch what happens if he wins again and he gets the house back - he will tax health care benefits and take away the deduction on retirement savings. You see, they need our money so that the billionaires can continue to pay zero taxes. Wake up.
2
If the fat cats would up their tax contribution to society to a fair share it would have little effect on their quality of life and people would leave them alone. But their makeup seems to insulate them from this insight.
1
The failure of American voters is to allow themselves to think that they are more likely to be poor than millionaires. They were brainwashed to believe that redistributing towards the middle, where they are, hurts them, as temporarily embarrassed millionaires.
1
The crybabies complain bitterly that we are picking on them; that we hate them because we are jealous of their wealth. They want to believe they are massively rich because they are smart, skillful and hardworking.
The truth is that no one would care how obscenely wealthy they are if it wasn't that mainstreet Americans have been slipping behind for 50 years. People are one illness away from bankruptcy, one layoff away from homelessness, one fentanyl patch away from an early death.
If Trump gets re-elected he will be even less covert about the fact that he's on the job to enrich his own business interests, and if we don't like it we can stuff it.
3
Anyone who doesn't thinks the economic scales must be rebalanced toward equality must be (drumroll please) a Wall Street hedge fund manager.
It's time for the Ayn Randians and Milton Friedmanites to be thrown into the dustbin of history.
5
There wouldn't be a billionaire class if the Federal Reserve did not 'wash and launder' the monetary system in which the banks, were the recipients of the national treasure. The greatest rewriting of fundamentally worthless assets that not even the congress has seen. During this lawless period not one banker, mortgage lender or asset manager was put in prison. I assume that was 'for the greater good." And you can guess what a politician might take away from this.
5
So when successful businessmen object the idiotic, dead on arrival proposals of the no-nothing wing of the Democratic party they are snow flakes? Most have no problem paying more taxes for sane good ideas like maybe balancing the budget or paying down the debt. But to finance the new, something for everyone welfare state with with numbers even the most optimistic supporters can't make balance? With ideas for an unconstitutional wealth tax which has been tried and rejected in western Europe? Or to quietly listen to the class warfare attacks against them from Sanders and Warren? They should call it out for what it is. And speak and vote with their brains and their wallets, against Warren and Sanders.
1
Once Americans recognize that corporations are the problem and government is the solution Wall St will suffocate on it’s own hubris. Sanders and Warren have already smashed the “tax” bogeyman. Now they can turn Bank and Wall St and oligarch support into the bogeyman. Are these plutocrats pro democracy? Do they have the American people at heart, or only their bottom line? Are they loyal citizens or do they move their profits and manufacturing “offshore”? Warren and Sanders can crush the Insurance faithful claim with insurers absurd claims of customer loyalty. Health insurance is a scam, a parasitic profit center, and left alone, the basis of widespread bankruptcy. It is not a progressive idea that Health Insurers are useless to consumers and when needed to hold prices to rational levels, they simply pass price increases on to consumers. Government protects life and property except when it comes to non-millionaires.
Rage simmers among those who lost their jobs and benefits, homes, retirement and college savings and their neighbors, friends, and relatives. They were disgusted when none of the culprits who caused the 2008 collapse went to jail. They are disgusted by those who profited from the collapse and have lorded it over them and their children. Warren has not exerted herself yet. Warren has not named firms and persons who engineered the collapse and profited from it. Should they pay reparations? Should assets be seized to the amount sheltered from taxes overseas?
1
"Why can’t financial tycoons handle criticism?"
Because they're narcissists? And no, in their hearts they don't know they're wrong as they have no heart, meaning conscience. Just taking the liberty of a wild guess.
1
I find it interesting that this argument about medicare seems to eat up so much oxygen when America is becoming ungovernable.
Regardless of the election results I wonder if only Louie Gohmert has it correct and Red and Blue America will only get together on the battlefield. There is no shortage of ignorance in Washington but when I need an example of foolishness Louie Gohmert always came first but in an almost Shakespearean way only the fool dare speak the truth.
I wonder how many of America's wisest men agree with the Gohmert but dare not speak his truth.
1
At least the robber barons of yesteryear actually built something of value along the way to their vaults, but the modern day robber barons make their riches by destroying value for others (e.g. private equity killing companies for cash). They are parasites on the productive. Finance needs serious regulation and is going to get it.
2
These observations and conjectures lead me to a popssible answer to a question that has bemused me for a long time: What strange urge drives people who are wealthy beyond imagination to forever strive to accumulate more? (e.g. why does a 2% tax on superfluous net worth raise such formidable defensive reactions?) Is the answer that such people are more like donald trump (minus, say the vulgarity) than we have believed, that their egos (senses of self and self-worth) are so fragile and insecure that those zeroes in a Panamanian computer are an attempt to compensate? Is it just a matter of some kids in a marbles game scrapping for bragging rights? Will they die like Citizen Kane, muttering "rosebud"? Is our world going up in fire and flood because some man-boys did not have loving mothers?
1
The explanation for the Wall Street billionaire's hysteria is simple: they are emotionally stunted children with no redeeming qualities other than their immense wealth. What is more, their children, who follow them into the same "profession" are even worse, growing up with wealth and privilege and expecting it for the rest of their lives. Anyone who has moved in these circles or has lived in a community with a high proportion of Wall Streeters knows that their children in particular are spoiled, incapable of hearing criticism, and fully expect to live the same gilded lifestyle as their parents. Regulate them, tax them, and when they break the law, put them in jail like everyone else. The problem will be solved in one generation.
1
Excellent points about the psychology of wealth and the wealthy in politics. Turn up the heat, Professor Krugman!!!
1
These .1 percenters fear the complete revocation of Trump’s obscene tax legislation gift to them, particularly the elimination of the fraudulent “carried interest” loophole which has stuffed their coffers for years. Whether it is Senator Warren or some other Democrat occupying the White House in 2021, there will definitely be a new sheriff in town with a full agenda to immediately address the problems of tax unfairness and income inequality. Let them eat cake!
1
Henry Ford was a ruthless tycoon, a bully and a bigot. But even with his grade-school education, he was smart enough to intuitively grasp that the best way to make himself a billionaire was to pay his workers a living wage so they could all go out and buy the Model T cars that they built (every one of which put more money in Mr. Ford's pocket).
Or as Professor Krugman has stated so well many times before, "My spending is your income, and your spending is my income".
But apparently this paradigm only works up to the first few billion dollars for the Titans of Wall Street. They apparently eventually reach "escape velocity" - beyond which their wealth injects them into an orbit where they're no longer affected by the closed feedback loop of economics that we mere mortals live under.
After one has ten or twenty billion dollars stashed around the world, these wealth gluttons are truly free of all earthly concerns (short of six mile-wide asteroids). They can fly on their BBJs and Gulfstreams from one gilded mansion to another around the planet and never rub elbows with mere millionaires again. Wars, famines, revolutions, financial panics all mean nothing to those who can afford to insulate themselves from virtually any catastrophe that will impoverish or kill tens of millions of us.
The only thing that appears to frighten these "beyond this world" greed-heads is the possibility that someone might force them to share a small sliver of their untold billions with the rest of us.
1
The Trump Wall street is a horde of Locusts decimating America and moving on to other nations to be plundered. Don't believe the sympathy pleading. They probably laugh about it later knowing just how gullible people are and that is how they got rich. Let's remember more importantly how the NYPD protected the Locusts during the "Occupy Wall Street" demonstrations. Everyone should just leave and let justice take it's course. It always does.
1
"What, after all, does modern finance actually do for the economy? "
Thank you. This entire industry does nothing except move other people's money around, and each time take a little bit off the top for themselves. The entire financial industry is just a leech, growing fat on the blood of the American worker/consumer. These people produce literally NOTHING for society, except fees and misery, and then they have the audacity to whine about how mean it is to say that they should actually contribute to the nation that allows them to grow so fat and happy at the expense of others?
1
We are witnessing what happens when excessively wealthy people rise to positions of power every day now. It’s consuming our national discourse. It’s a gross self serving soap with zero substance.
In the mean time important issues are disregarded. It’s almost like a diversion; have the wealthy purchased themselves a puppet we can watch while they continue to plunder and leave nothing behind?
What is it with billions, gazillions? Shear gluttony!
Trickle down? Absolutely and their definition of trickle when it comes to their stuff is an occasional drip.
1
So, you mean Wall St’s complaints against such ideas as a wealth tax are coming from a selfish place and not a result of actual economic analysis? Profound.
1
Isn't the real problem Ego?
People with large fortunes tended to think they made their money by being smarter than everyone else when the truth is they are simply greedier, more ruthless and essentially amoral.
To be told they are less than the smartest person in the room, engenders rage and resentment, not unlike our infinitely wise and infallible dear leader.
"...people with vast wealth but fragile egos, whose rants should be discounted appropriately."
Compulsive over-achievers have to find a way to justify their never-enough acquivity. What we can do as a society is to stop treating these neurotic people as "successful", but rather to seek to lead them out of their desperate, insatiable insecurity to a point where they can be happy human beings with a fortune of say, a mere $50 million
These people are really crying for our help!
We can make a good first effort with our tax laws.
1
Personally, I take Wall Street's hysterical opposition to Warren as a sign that she is on the right track.
(No, NOT the left track!)
2
Can we get an update on this June NYT piece, to see what's become of support from the uber-wealthy for higher taxes on their wealth, in light of Warren's recent release of details? Though they're rare in their income class, I love that there is more than a handful who are not so blinded by greed that they see where we're headed. I'd hope to see Warren spotlighting some of these contrarians! [https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/24/business/economy/wealth-tax-letter.html]
The entitled and unproductive but rich anyway Wall Streeters hate Elizabeth Warren? And she welcomes their hatred?
That's the best reason to vote for her I've seen yet.
Scared of Warren because:
1) She's smart and detailed, has a big picture view, knows the rackets
2) She's done it before (Consumer Financial Protection Bureau)
3) She's attracting smart people to work for her
The snowflakes should take a step back and take a breath. When the financial and economic bubbles subside, they'll look at their balance sheet and see assets will have shrunk by 20% or more regardless. The more evolved will realize that the current distribution model is unsustainable, and it'd be better to invest this 20% into society.
Imagine the warped sense of entitlement that allows a billionaire to believe that he or she is actually worthy of more wealth than the combined total wealth held by thousands of middle-class families.
Then imagine how distorted a billionaire's own sense of worth is relative to those thousands of middle-class families.
Then imagine how violated a billionaire’s view of fairness is when asked to sacrifice some wealth to improve the well-being of those middle-class families.
Then you will understand the "too rightfully wealthy to neither care nor share" mentality. Snowflakes – no. Greedy overlords – yes.
Unlike the robber barons of yore, today’s Wall Street tycoons don’t build anything tangible.
So true. They simply find a seam in the economy and cut a hole to suck money out, whether by high-speed trading, or arcane financial products they sell with the promise they will promote efficiency in the markets.
Balderdash.
And then they whine about having to pay their fair share.
In your next column Paul, please explain to me why anyone in their right mind would want to take financial or political advice from "tycoons" who were instrumental in inflicting Trump on America.
1
Mr. Krugman finishes with advice to discount appropriately the rants of those with what he calls “vast wealth”. I read the Leon Cooperman letter from start to finish and found it incredibly well written, filled with facts and even conciliatory with his suggestion that he and Senator Warren should be working together.
So what do we really have here in this piece? Nothing more than the usual broad brush attack at anything even remotely conservative or Republican. Since Mr. Krugman is an economist, has he ever opined on Warren’s ideas to break up certain large tech companies? Do the astronomical numbers that she proposed last week to pay for her grand ideas make any sense to him? Does he even care?
Maybe we should simply declare all high school seniors as co-valedictorians and call it day. We read quite a bit about greed, and their is no doubt it can create awful consequences at times. However, these tireless attacks on the wealthy (a term admittedly defined differently by many) do seem to me as nothing more than a ton of self pity and envy. On the other hand I consider the word “free” in the same category as opioids.....an immediate high which leads to an incredibly difficult to break addiction. And yes, I’ve seen this at work in my own family.
Wall Street tycoons are nothing more than glorified gamblers that demand respect when they inadvertently hit it big on a bet while claiming to be geniuses merely because a bet comes true. I guess that makes all Lotto winners geniuses for having invested a dollar on wisely putting in such effort and hard work picking the right numbers - true genius.
They create no wealth - they just hoard wealth away from society and it's needs that would actually grow the economy for everyone.
Questioning their wisdom, their genius or their greatness and you'll get a trumpian response. They're all the same. If The NY Times had the resources to replicate their investigation of trump's the tax evasion schemes and and wealth accumulation scams, they'd likely find a similar story to all those so called self-made arrogantly successful billionaires.
So rich and yet so fragile an ego says it all. They can't legitimately defend their illegitimate wealth accumulation and tax exempt hoarding so they lash out just as Mr. Krugman describes - like an illegitimate president who knows he is illegitimate pounding the Twitter-verse claiming he is the greatest most legitimate president ever.
It’s easy to pick at some of the dopey parts of Elizabeth Warren’s plans. But Wall Street continues to be an apologist for the greatest and most rampant failure of the current American style of capitalism—its utter inequality. When 1% of the country owns 40% of its wealth, does that meet Wall Street’s definition of a “successful economy”? We’ve evolved into an economic system where he who has the greatest amount of computing or lobbying power wins, and the rest largely get shafted.
Still waiting for Wall Street’s plan for anything other than enriching itself. At least Warren has one.
1
I wonder what Dr. K thought of Steve Rattner's diatribe against Liz: "The Warren Way Is The Wrong Way," here in today's NYTimes.
I thought Steve was one of us, but I guess having lots of money shows you a new world, a world most of us never see.
Of course, we're prejudiced, too, being relatively poor, so we see things our way.
I wonder if there's an objective truth in macroeconomics. We all seem to be coming at the problem from the tacit position of, What's in it for me?
Nietzsche was right: We're human, all too human.
Some years ago the NY Times ran an cogent op-ed by a Wall Street banker who went into treatment for alcohol and other addictions and did a course of high quality psychotherapy for some years. What he discovered in his recovery and described in his op-ed is that Wall Street is about ADDICTION TO MONEY. This is a tidy explanation for greed and also for the irrational insanity of devoting your life to making even more money when one is already a billionaire. The vitriol that Krugman describes here is the voice of the addict whose supply is being threatened! I like the addiction model about Wall Street because it fits the facts and explains the immoral insanity so well. And this is so very sad that our best and brightest math minds are ending up in the Ritalin and cocaine and paid for sex that runs rampant on Wall Street and that is directly sourced in Ivy League frat boy sociopathy. The sooner all this gets more strictly regulated, the better for our country.
Never trust anyone who has never worked in the private sector for a significant portion of their income!
Meet Exhibit A1: Paul Krugman
If they can't handle Warren, they're really gonna lose it when Bernie becomes President.
"What's behind that virulence?" Despite his thoughtful analysis, Mr. Krugman stays clear of the obvious. Elizabeth Warren is a woman, a tough, smart woman. That is surely what lurks behind that virulence. Keep the women in the broadroom and the bedroom, out of our boardrooms.
I believe Steven Rattner has proven your point rather convincingly Mr. Krugman. He wraps himself in a Democratic cloak but it fits him very badly. It is no longer okay to be progressive "socially" and conservative "fiscally." You cannot divide the two. Taking all the money while paying part-time, low wage jobs is anti-social greed in a nutshell and leads to downtrodden lives and desperate people living paycheck to paycheck. Keeping them from having medical care without big brother corporations help is just more control.
Look at what the average American puts up with on daily basis in the name of greed and you need not wonder at some of their despair. You can't be a snowflake and survive in the world that Rattner and his Wall Street friends have created on their piles of money.
Let us gather our pitchforks and come for the wealthy who exploit working people, the poor, the old and the environment.
What is needed is revolution not reform.
Am I the only one who has wondered whether Wall Street people and the like are throwing money at Buttigieg is because they know that if he somehow got the nomination he could never win the election?
If you ask me, a lot of those folks should be very thankful that they aren't wearing orange and living in an 8x8 cell for what they did back before the 2008 crisis.
1
Part of this, it seems to me, is the division between the ultra wealthy who actually built great fortunes but remember their beginnings and are generous with their wealth such as Gates, Bloomberg, Soros, Zuckerberg (yes!),Walton and Buffett
Versus
Those that are just gamblers, scam artists, con men and women and opportunists...and deep down, know it.
Sure, their interests are threatened. But maybe, just maybe, these “snowflakes” fashion themselves experts in their chosen field (many with successful careers) and think Warren is actually wrong, that her policies will HURT the American economy. I concede, their wallets are top of mind but maybe so is a lifetime of practical experience.
Say you’re an electrician on a job site and a new foreman comes in and wants to dramatically change all of the electrical systems, all of the plumbing, all of the carpentry, and whether or not the painter uses rollers or brushes. The new foreman claims they have a whole new “plan” for how the house should be built! Wouldn’t you, the electrician, at least question this new direction if it didn’t fit your training and experience?
The American people are looking for a LEADER, not a jack of all trades, “I know better than you, my way or the highway” academic. I understand Warren’s base support, I just don’t think her approach resonates far enough for a majority, particularly in key swing states.
1
As Jim Calhoun so eloquently put it, "Not one dime." The plutocrats and kleptocrats don't want to pay one more dime. And Steve Mnuchin is their handmaiden in Treasury. And he helps himself. The personification of greed, along with his boss.
Greed is killing Western democracy. Do these jokers think their shrouds will have pockets?
The phrase used by Ronald Coase is "maximalization of wealth" (not profit).
https://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/03/08/neoliberalism-and-higher-education/?searchResultPosition=1
I think that we see here a rhetorical maneuver that anticipates the coming Presidential campaign that refers to the practices of wealth maximalization (or profit) as being above criticism. The invocation of such criticism as being obscene is an insistance on a rigid view and not particularly open to rational arguement. It's a doctine that states that economic value is always in the right despite the harm that might be done as a consequence of its practices.
VAst wealth . . . fragile egos! Well put!
Anyone with any sense stopped paying attention to the ravings of Wall Street when the alphabet soup ranging from CDO to debt tranches circulated after the collapse of 2007-2008.
1
Certainly greed is an important part of the picture. But when you are wealthy enough to live in an echo chamber that constantly parrots your own self-importance and praise through corporate boards, market analysts, think tanks and entire TV networks, how can you not feel outraged when you are challenged by voices loud enough to penetrate your bubble?
They think they have all the answers and believe they deserve all the rewards. Just like the monarchies of old did.
Ok. Am I sensing a menschkeit appearing somewhere between the lines here, Professor? You are a smart man whom I thought highly of when I sat in your classes at MIT more than three decades ago.
I would like to think that the corollary of your article should be a clear endorsement of Warren. Maybe it is wishful thinking but I will welcome you joining the ranks of the righteous not just the intelligent opportunists.
The Fed is printing money again...and expects to print $15 trillion by Jan 2020.
"You don’t think the Fed is all about markets? Where have you been? After all, the Fed’s stated policy objective now is to extend the business cycle by any means necessary. And policy makers can’t do that with falling stock prices." -Marketwatch
You don't become a multi-millionaire without a large amount of ego to drive you. You tend to believe that what you are doing to acquire your money and power must be good. You put on blinders to any harm it is causing. You create myths that turn devastating layoffs that destroy your workers' lives into a brave and noble effort to maximize shareholder value—an effort that you convince yourself is sure to benefit all of society. And your financial success, combined with the abundant praise of all those around you, convinces you you must be right. How could you have become so wealthy, so widely lauded if you weren't truly doing what's true, right, and good?
Then comes Elizabeth Warren to point out that you're acquisition of great wealth didn't actually make society better. It left most of your former workers flipping hamburgers with the money to afford healthcare or send their kids to college.
Well isn't that an unpleasant fly in your soup? Of course you are outraged.
1
@617to416
Edit"
Then comes Elizabeth Warren to point out that your acquisition of great wealth didn't actually make society better. It left most of your former workers flipping hamburgers without the money to afford healthcare or send their kids to college.
Billionaires have the same psychology as everyone else, except they have a lot more money. In other words they are prey to the same deficiencies as the rest of us: lust, avarice, jealousy...their worst sin is thinking "I'm rich therefore I must be right"...that is sociopathic delusion. They need to keep their mouths shut and do the only thing that interests them....living the high life and lording it over their minions. Personally I would jail them just on principle, but that's just sour grapes from a member of the toiling masses.
I watched Leon Cooperman on CNBC today, crying like a baby because the big bad Warren was after his money. He should be ashamed of himself. Warren Buffet would not stoop to such public acts of self-pity. What a pathetic picture of a man, Leon Cooperman was today on TV for all to see. He is not in the same league as Warren Buffet, Bill Gates, or Michael Bloomberg, whom he mentioned in his televised meltdown today.
Just think of the education most of these Wall Street tycoons have had -- economics and business courses, maybe some math to boot.
Most are clueless about history, society, anthropology, literature, and philosophy (unless you count Ayn Rand here).
They are one-dimensional, panting over the next deal, the next home to buy, the next yacht. They demean a well-rounded education, finding STEM the answer to everything, along with business and economic courses, of course. Everything before yesterday is meaningless "ancient history."
And yet, they are presidential advisors, op-ed authors, public intellectuals (despite their lack of being interested in the public and not having an intellectual bone in their body). They are the real news, while Ukranian and Russian history are fake news. Leaders are all that matter and the rest of us are the detritus of past failures to rise to the top of the financial world.
Too many little ones have accepted this and mimic their denunciation of fake this and that, seeing only the shiny Ferraris as real and worthy of praise.
Just look at Rattner's column today (better, don't look).
You don't become a multi-millionaire without a large amount of ego to drive you. You tend to believe that what you are doing to acquire your money and power must be good. You put on blinders to any harm it is causing. You create myths that turn devastating layoffs that destroy your workers' lives into a brave and noble effort to maximize shareholder value—an effort that you convince yourself is sure to benefit all of society. And your financial success, combined with the abundant praise of all those around you, convinces you you must be right. How could you have become so wealthy, so widely lauded if you weren't truly doing what's true, right, and good?
Then comes Elizabeth Warren to point out that your acquisition of great wealth didn't actually make society better. It left most of your former workers flipping hamburgers without the money to afford healthcare or send their kids to college.
Well isn't that an unpleasant fly in your soup? Of course you are outraged.
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The sense of entitlement exhibited by the financial community is in direct proportion to the depth of the deceit that they practice. Surfing on other peoples sweat does not make one the very flower of capitalism. To the contrary their relationship to the economy more closely resembles that of a parasitic pathogen to a host.
They are addicted to wealth ("precious"). Like any addict, they will do anything and everything to possess their "precious" wealth. Have we learned nothing from the Lord of the Rings?
Hmm. "to a large extent they [rants] are coming from people with vast wealth but fragile egos, whose rants should be discounted appropriately." Reminds me of someone other than a wall street banker.
It’s all about narcisism. Wall street snow flakes believe they know better! As Krugman says, money made in the financial sector seldom translates into main street benefits. So when someone dares to call it as it is, they get upset because they feel tha they do not get the respect they believe they deserve.
Fran Lebowitz said it brilliantly in one of her aphoristic observations when she said that no one "earns" a billion dollars.
With friends like Wall Street, who needs enemies?
Nothing scarier to a billionaire than a grandmother with the means to backup her opinions.
Re :"Objectively, Obama treated Wall Street with kid gloves...... He and Democrats in Congress did impose some new regulations, but they were very mild compared with the regulations put in place after the banking crisis of the 1930s."
Oh gosh !
In 2012 In his lunch with Martin Wolf, Paul Krugman revealed the real reason of Obama's kind treatment of Wall Street
"Look, with even a few mild words of reproof, Obama has lost a huge funding source from Wall Street."
(FT, Lunch with Paul Krugman, May 25, 2012)
Obama was running for re-election and elections, in the US, cost millions of dollars to win.
"“It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.” - Upton Sinclair
Hoarding is an infantile means of personal defense and status exhibitionism. The crass Reagan Restoration rewarded greed and fraud as a means of ego puffery. Our American "culture" has elevated tacky and immature moral weaklings to the heights of our politics and commerce. It will be the death knell of Western democracy. Have another glass of Champagne and a cigar!
James Bond and his British spy colleagues carried the 00 (double 0) designation, their license to kill. Wall Street tycoons should be given a similar designation for their license to steal.
Readers everywhere, please ask yourself a few simple questions: Does the Wall Street Hedge Fund Mogul, with W’s preferential “carried interest” income tax rate, add anything of value to their investments in health care, military, or any other corporate industrial complexes? Do they actually perform any “work” that promotes the General Welfare of all American citizens as proposed in the Preamble to the US Constitution? What risk do these vipers take as compared to the average working woman and man? Do they make health care more or less affordable? What contribution to the American economy do these folks actually offer while sitting restlessly in their corner offices on Wall Street?
POTUS Obama, and his lovely wife Michelle, were perhaps the classiest and most graceful couple by far to ever occupy the White House. Giver the choices we had, I gladly voted twice for this man. But I must agree with Mr. Krugman that his attitude and treatment of Wall Street was lackluster, a big disappointment to say the least. America does not need another Wall Street apologist, such as Mayor Pete, in the White House. FDR, a “traitor to his class,” reigned in the Gilded Age financiers, and only POTUS Warren - my first choice - or POTUS Sanders have the courage - and the know how - to follow in FDR’s footsteps.
Pity the poor tycoons! Another Democratic president might make them park their private jets and perhaps even--gasp--fly commercial airlines to their private vacation homes!
One hundred dollars in the hands of a poor man gets spent for food, clothing, housing or health care and rattles around the economy at least 12 times before it stops. The same hundred in the hands of a rich man ends up in the painting of an old master or in an overseas account or in yet another home and rarely sees the light of day again.
If we want our economy to truly grow, we need to strip much of that useless wealth to fund overdue services, deteriorating infrastructure and R&D for the industries of the future.
Give any American a net worth of $50M and he or she would be set for life. I do not believe a 2% wealth tax on net worth exceeding $50M or treating capital gains as ordinary income would immiserate anyone.
Krugman is wrong about the credit number. The total debt in the US economy is around $70 trillion made up of:
Government debt...21 trillion
Household debt...13 trillion
Routine commercial debt...15 trillion
Financial industry debt...20 trillion
I worked on Wall Street so instead of guessing why I don't like Warren let me tell you. Warren abused the affirmative action program for her benefit over many years. She also did a study on personal bankruptcies and concluded that the majority were due to medical expenses which turns out to be not true. Academic fraud is something Krugman would not normally take lightly if she were not his candidate. But the main reason I don't like her is because every single one of her policy proposals- healthcare, education, childcare, banking- involves central planning by someone in DC to decide what is best for everyone. Because we have a capitalist system, currently, which is a necessary condition for individual freedom and democracy, we can withstand a bad President since the real power is with the people. A socialist might not start out thinking that she will use any means necessary to cling to power when her policies fail but it always turns out that way. Look at the corruption in Hungry because the communist government controlled the farmland and distributed EU subsidies to those politically connected as pointed out by the NYTs.
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Ms Warren wants to take money from everyone, though she won’t admit she is going to take it from the middle class. And people don’t like other people taking their money, especially when they take a lot of money and plan to give that money to people who are here illegally. In short, she wants to take a lot of money from hard working citizens and give it to everyone else, including criminal aliens. And you wonder why they are mad?
It is impossible for most people to know what it is like to suffer the burden of being weighed down by all those billions of dollars on the ultra-wealthy. Imagine the fear they must wake to every day wondering if they will be reduced to mere millionaires. You drop a couple of exponential values and there you are slumming around in the common world of 10 to the 8th or worse the 6th. It is like a reverse Richter scale, each exponent lost moves you rapidly away from the grandiose. They are fragile because a fall from the top frightens them, especially if they were born there.
How many more houses, private planes, yachts, private islands do these Wall Streeters need? Do they know something about taking it with you that the rest of us don’t know?
The historian Frederick Lewis Allen aptly named these "snowflakes", The Lords of Creation in a 1935 book. More recently (1988), the physicist Heinz Pagels wrote, that the Wall Street "money culture" creates nothing but wealth. Hedge fund creator, Robert Mercer is a perfect example of such "snowflakes" who has called for the abolition of the I.R.S. (Mercer, at least, is a brilliant mathematician unlike some of the "snowflakes" Krugman mentions.)
Such people have never taken criticism or scrutiny well (remember the Muckrakers?) which is all the more reason to keep a close eye them.
Professor Krugman asks, "Why can’t financial tycoons handle criticism?" I'll tell you why.
As it has been run for the last 40 years, since Reagan, American finance has acted as a parasite. The parasite's "host" is nothing less than the American economy and the American people. As is the case with all parasites, American finance cares not about the well-being, even about the destruction of the host. When a parasite has sucked the last ounce of life, the last drop of blood from the host, it simply moves on.
Seen in this light, the reason why financial tycoons can't "handle criticism" is that for them, any such criticism constitutes an existential threat. They know far better than we do that, once discovered by the host, the parasite will be removed, just as you would remove a tick if you found one on yourself or your child.
In short, the parasitical financial class' hysteria is no mystery at all. Their continued existence is threatened by Warren and Sanders and they're reacting proportionate to the threat.
As long as progressive politicians such as Sanders and Warren continue to promise to protect the host--the American economy and the American people--the parasites know they cannot rest. How else explain the flood of big donor donations to the campaigns of such neoliberal candidates as Biden and Buttigieg, who promise a return to the status quo?
Grab your checkbooks, gentlemen.
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If the top 10% of U.S. households continue to gain wealth at the same rate they did from 2013-2016, they will have 100% of the wealth in the U.S. just 33 years from now.
Source: https://www.dallasnews.com/business/personal-finance/2019/08/04/at-this-rate-the-rich-could-truly-have-it-all-just-33-years-from-now/
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Excellent piece, and amusing that it appears below an op ed by a wall street guy bemoaning how much he thinks Warren will be bad for this country.
It’s not that Wall Street snowflakes can’t take criticism; it’s that they won’t allow it. They hate BERNIE; they revile him. Warren is as solid but she dares to criticize how Wall Street controls us all. She must be stopped.
The stock market doesn’t reflect the lives average Americans with no health care or no benefit but high pressure jobs are living. It is the play ground of the wealthy that allows some average humans in to protect in from the rate of the working man and woman. Democratization of the stock market was the big con. We see that now as Aramco goes “public”. It’s a farce and a con.
The biggest snowflake in the room is in the WH.
Like the majority of the rich they feel shunned that they are not on a higher perch. They forgot that their is more to life then money. They forgot that their are people out there that need a wage that they can live with. They forgot that without people they would not be where they are.
History has taught but no one sees.
Read the book "We The Corporations". It's a subject for the greed of these people of so called morals. It's a book on the Supreme court and how they forgot about the people.
All true.
But can she get elected?? Or will T. succeed in painting her as a communist in voters' minds?
I think there's a real fear of McGovern redivivus.
Case in point - Steve Ratner’s Op Ed today. This article is a timely rebuttal!
I would like to read an analysis by Mr Krugman of how the Wall Street snowflakes come to have these fragile egos coupled with a sense of entitlement/deservedness/specialness. I have my theory. Two words: Ivy League.
Professor Krugman's characterization of the super rich as being oversensitive ingrates contradicts what I learned from Lloyd Blankfein, namely that he and his buddies were doing God's work. Not true?
THe best example of this was the pathetic bleating of Jim Cramer on MSNBC over how archetypal robber bank Wells Fargo was having trouble finding a new CEO because they (along with China in Cramer's telling) are afraid of the Senator.
Her perfect response, which you can find on line was to run the clip followed by, "I'm Elizabeth Warren, and I approve this message." You go girl!
The more you have, the more vulnerable you are. Freedom is nothing left to lose or fret over.
It’s all about attitude. They believe they are Masters of the Universe and that they deserve all of the entitlement that goes with the title.
How in the world the author comes to the conclusion that Wall Street should be "going all out" to block Elizabeth Warren, with 0 mention of Senator Sanders--a far more aggressive policymaker--is extremely curious to me.
How do you talk about a candidate who takes money from corporations as if shes a progressive? She is, at best, a left leaning liberal, and this fascination that the New York Times has with propping her up as a progressive icon while ignoring actual progressive leaders is a surprisingly blatant attempt at co-opting a grassroots movement.
Wall Street is not blocking Elizabeth Warren because Elizabeth Warren is not blocking Wall Street.
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Wall Street much prefers Trumpy, the Hater President, because the billionaires and millionaires made millions with the tax cut Trumpy gave himself, his children and themselves. Trumpy fully intends to give himself and his children another tax cut and Wall Street wishes to take advantage of this prospect. The middle and working classes won't be richer, and may in fact lose their health insurance as that is Trumpy's plan.
You're missing the elephant in the room, Mr Krugman. The hatred for Warren is simply old time misogyny. Wall Street is the ultimate men's club and a woman calling the shots turns every old guard stomach into knots. This is especially true for the nabobs who always assume extreme loud versions of establishment traits. Pathetic but empowered.
These masters of the universe are devoid of ethics, morality and compassion. Let them melt, before they drag us all down.
Again.
The best thing Obama did was save Capitalism.
This is what he'll be remembered for.
The rest is just noise.
Steven Rattner’s column (just above this one in the online edition) about the “dangers” of a Warren presidency seems to confirm the phenomenon which Krugman describes.
Someone once said Billionaires are chickens.
I thought they said 'taste like chicken.'
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Hardly anyone can stomach criticism these days. The social media malaise. Dish out and be offended.
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The fun part of a consent decree is that while not admitting any wrongdoing, you have to promise to not do it again.
I believe William Buckley (or his family's trust) signed one of these in connection with some chicanery involving.... drive-in movie theaters.
The billionaire $$$ is going to Buttigieg because Biden has already been bought off and Sanders and Warren won't take it.
The paroxysms coming from the billionaire class are due to the fact that their pick for president (Buttigieg) is currently in 4th place. They had Obama, Hillary and Trump in their back pockets, but are positioned to get played out of the game in the 2020 presidential election. These folks are not used to not calling the shots.
The interesting thing is that a majority of Wall Street "tycoons" are liberal Democrats who have, for years, given generously to Democrats and liberal causes.
Today's Times carries an op-ed by one of those "snowflakes" that Mr. Krugman is referring to... Steven Rattner.
Warren's plans will destroy our economy along with millions of jobs. If the Dems want to beat Trump, they must look to a better choice. Joe Biden and Pete Buttigieg come to mind.
'To try to cure greed by seeking more wealth is like trying to extinguish a fire with butter fat.'
Way to tell it like it is Mr. Krugman!
You need look no further than Stephen Rattner's editorial in today's times to see multi millionaire financial industry goons whinging about Warren. If she makes those people anxious, I'm with her.
They can’t handle critics because they do not want to handle critics.
These rich non working prospectors with other people’s wealth are the death of democracy. Gonzo capitalism and Wall Street were allowed to walk free under Obama . TARP!
The criminality of our federal government must have stunned this new ,young ,racially mixed president .
He wasn’t able to act logically or reasonably with the entrenched status quo so he just gave up trying way too soon.
Dumb Bush 2 left Obama with Cheney’s mess. The public was fed emotional pablum for 8 years and rhetoric counterproductive to legislation protecting our rights under our constitution. Voting rights obviously were not protected in former slave states and Native American nation states within the country.
Obama should have focused on infrastructure and voting rights .
Either he was a poor planner without solid understanding of the country’s need for living wages and good jobs or he simply wasn’t so full of wisdom as some of his cult thought.
Both parties have degraded terribly due to their elite bases.
Warren is getting a bit too crazy. Stop feeling the need to inundate us with your great “ plans on paper”.
Klobuchar and Gabbard for my money now. The rest get cabinet positions and fan out into Europe as ambassadors.
Main goal is to stop this resurgent need here for a monarch.
We blew it for humanity.
9/11/01 and bin Laden said as much the day after he attacked us with a bunch of Sauds. It is obscene to me 20 years later
Yes, and the media (including the NYTimes, sadly) consistently gives Wall Street whining a voice. They complain, and an article gets written. I wish the rest of us had that much power.
While Wall Street might bitterly oppose Elizabeth Warren‘s plans and proposals, who other than well educated liberals are in favor of them?
Approximately nobody. Not even a majority of the people whom they are supposed to help.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/19/opinion/elizabeth-warren-electability-2020.amp.html
Forget about her. She has no chance.
The proof is in the pudding, and the tax break for billionaires bill sure tastes lousy to middle America. What happened to the big investment in US business, factories, infrastructure that the tax break for billionaires bill promised? Too busy dumping the easy money into stock buybacks to worry about middle America, and... promises?
I love it Paul, Wall street 'snowflakes'... oh so hurt by the reality that Warren, along with most of the rest of us, were seriously angry in 2008 that Obama didn't start a 'lock them up chant' of his own. Yes, he fixed the financial crisis, but for who, Wall street snowflakes? And in ignorance of who was to blame for the crash of 2008, MAGA Joe six-pack gave us Trump. So now it looks like Warren's turn. Not my first choice, but revenge of the snowflake stomper has a nice ring to it.
In the fall of 2008 as the economy was collapsing, I was in a meeting and a coworker (a former investment banker) stated that GM and Chrysler should be allowed to fail. I asked why we should bail out the banks, but allow the automakers to go under. His response was that we need finance and the automakers were failing because of bad management. I told him that the banks obviously had bad management if they were failing and that there were hundreds of thousands of people dependent on the auto industry, so the government would be derelict in its duty to simply allow it to fail. He sat for a second and then said, "wow, you are a liberal." I said, "no, I'm a pragmatist. you can't blame on industry for bad management and exempt another for exactly the same thing."
The medical profession isn't going to release a backlash against Warren, no need to. They hold the keys to America's healthcare and they know it. Unless the government owns the hospitals, clinics and employs the doctors, nurses, technicians and administrative support, they're free to simply close the doors and go home. The Democrats and Liberals broadcast a lot of big talk of how they're going to make healthcare free and pay for it by reducing costs and taxing the rich but deep down they know any changes will be a long time in coming and be very different from what they envision.
Warren is the last thing on Wall Street's mind. Obama removed Warren from consideration as the CFPB's first formal director as he didn't think she'd be able to stand up to Republican opposition. I can imagine what Barack is thinking now.
America has a perverse relationship with the Fat Cats of Wall Street. We despise extreme wealth and privilege but when we check our 401k statements we like what we see, a lot. Despite the chicken little cries of Mr. Krugman, the stock market continues to hit new highs, employment is at an all time low and consumer confidence is an unstoppable force.
Healthcare needs reform but the single most important mother of all reforms is loosening the grip wealth has on politics - campaign finance reform and repealing the citizens united decision. The current system of buying politicians and industry misinformation campaihns is a cancer to democracy. Money in politics is legal corruption. It must be made illegal. The media prefers not to champion campaign finnance reform because it would cut into their ad revenue.
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Mr. Krugman, thank you for your clear explanation for the current class of uber-rich types' behavior when their hegemony is questioned. Can you recommend a book on economic history for people who are not economists, that focuses on the relationship between worker financial standing and ruling class financial standing? Workers need a lot of help right now, but my cursory understanding is that for all of human history (except for the last 100 years or so) workers were abject serfs often on the edge of starvation and the wealthy hid behind their armies and consumed and sequestered for themselves the fruits of everyone's labor.
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The Gordon Gekko types never left Wall Street, no, aided by the GOP since the 1980s, their greed is good philosophy has turned in a malignancy threatening the very life of our democracy. They are bottomless pits of need, with Hair Furor leading the pack (another overblown 1980s leftover that should have been left there, but thanks to greedy Wall Street bankers, was never held accountable for bankrupting them six times over). There is no amount of money and power in the world the fill the voids of these empty suits, empty chest cavities where hearts should be, and empty brains where empathy should be.
1
The deepest mine of source material for Democratic rage against Wall Street is in the Panama Papers, which exposed how the wealthy avoid U.S. taxes, as Donnie has.
Elizabeth Warren needs to confront the laws (not just federal, but many state) that permit the formation of trusts and foundations that are the principal vehicles of tax avoidance and wealth accumulation.
The sooner, the better.
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The problem isn't just the "financialization" of America or even political paralysis from America's culture war. The problem in America is far deeper. We began with a democracy that was intent on solving problems. The problem for George Washington was how the eastern seaboard could benefit from the great expansion westward, especially into the Ohio river valley where Washington had large land holdings. Newly arrived immigrants had no choice but to ship their produce south on the Ohio river to New Orleans. To move those goods east to the large population centers of New York and a canal was needed. Canals were the in vogue technology of that era. Washington imported a man with singular talent to build a canal over the Allegheny mountains to the Ohio river. Ultimately Washington's canal effort was a failure, but the New York canal wasn't. The Erie Canal was a huge success and spawned the commercial success of New York city. The men who envisioned America's future are gone, and now replaced by simple minded bean counters. Sadly, the technologic future of America is pretty easy to define. One new technology is energy. From an engineering viewpoint, green energy is available in vast quantities, like the Ohio valley this energy is ours for the taking. All we need is a class of men who can stop arguing over money and see the new frontier.
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Comment is intriguing. But we need a new group of people, not just men, to lead this new direction.
So many of today's billionaires made their money by basically stealing it - by buying successful companies, stripping them of their assets and then shutting them down, or as in one notable example, convincing banks to give them huge loans that they then walk away from when the promised riches from casinos don't appear. Wall Street isn't afraid of Warren's taxes, it's afraid of her ability to shut down their money making cons.
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Lucy Kellaway, who used to be the best thing in the Financial Times for her interviews deftly skewering self-important billionaires and CEOs, observed that almost all of these people have one thing in common: they mistake luck for talent. None of them will ever, ever answer the question of how they got so rich with "I got a lucky break".
And BTW most of them come from the upper classes to begin with because inequality is hereditary, increasingly so, and so they have been swimming since birth in a sea of luck. To expect them to understand that is like expecting a fish to have a deep comprehension of the desert.
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My wife has been in corporate America for 30 years. The last 15 have been for companies held by holding companies. These holdings companies have no interest in making better mousetraps or improving customer service. Their goal is to exploit the holding until they sell it to some other holding company. Rinse and repeat!
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The stock market continues to break records and anyone who is invested enjoys these gains. I often wonder what percentage of the population are not enjoying the benefits or unearned income and what percentage of these people actually vote or understand how our economy is not geared for their success.
2
The 1% have a huge amount of the USA national wealth and income.
Ask yourself, how much more do they want?
Wealth accumulation is basically a zero sum game. The GDP pot grows at maybe 2% a year, most of which (probably 80%+) goes to the 1%. Any more serious wealth accumulation by the 1% has to come from the bottom 99%.
This is achieved by lowering income, capital and estate taxes on the wealthy and adding that to the deficit to be paid by future generations of the 99%.
America is now in a situation very similar to the last 10 minutes of a 4 hour family game of Monopoly. most of the people are out and the last 2 are fighting over who wins.
3
Paul, I am begging you to address the threat these people pose to the stability of the economy. Wealth and the ability to abuse markets has become so insanely concentrated that I fear for the nation’s financial stability, not because of any tax Warren might propose, but by the active manipulation of markets by the small number of business entities that it would take to damage the economy, as a pre-emptive strike against Warren by the Cooperman’s of the world.
No one knew Enron was causing rolling blackouts and brown-outs by market fraud during the Davis Governorship UNTIL HE WAS NO LONGER GOVERNOR.
You say their temper-tantrums are harmless. I say prove it.
7
The more Wall Street, other businesses and wealthy people decry Warren, the more I know she and Sanders are on the right path.
4
Elizabeth Warren has ventured into a dangerous political arena, principally the promise to raise taxes. She may feel that raising taxes is for a good cause but no politician has ever been elected on that promise regardless of the righteousness of the cause. .Politicians have promised better health care, schools and roads and stupid things too like walls at boarders but have kept from discussing openly the source of funding, that being taxes.
Even when the taxes will fall on the very rich, Americans are are weary of how "rich" is to be defined and how it can creep into what today are middle-class wages and wealth. Rather than using the word taxes they have promised and introduced programs that obtain funding by way of taxation laws ...determined at federal, state and local levels ...this is a very diffuse cloud that tends not to arouse much in the way of passions.
That taxes will rise to cover deficits that are rapidly accumulating is easy enough to predict and that the rich and corporations will be the principal targets of raised taxes in the future is predictable given the current direction of the american economy under Trump. If wall street is worried about Warren, they should maybe even worry more about Trump because the present economic experiment of cutting taxes and depending on an economic expansion that has not materialized is leading us into an exploding deficit that ultimately will be the driver of higher taxes...Interestingly Trumps avoids this subject !
2
Something I think even Warren has not said: "Investment banks" should not be allowed to own companies.
1
In 1950, after the need to fund an expensive war the Treasury was in deep debt, so progressive tax rates were employed, up to 91% on incomes over $200,000. This tax rate schedule not only facilitated our recovery from an expensive war, but spurred the economy in record fashion. Such progressive tax rates are anathema to people with high incomes, not only do the high earners want an overwhelming share of the pot, they also want to defend that huge share against any leveling effects. It should be noted this progressive tax rate schedule was maintained through the presidency of Dwight Eisenhower, a Republican, and only rescinded after John F. Kennedy, a liberal Democrat, became president. Why did the extremely wealthy Kennedy, a president fond of orating about improving the lot of struggling working people, foster returning to regressive income tax rates ? Could it have been that he gave a higher priority towards increasing his own wealth than he did for tending to the prosperity of those in need ? We believe that leaders should have high principles, but when it comes to their own wealth, billionaires give high principles second violin status. This is not meant to criticize Kennedy particularly but, despite being a Dem, he is a good example of a politician representing his class, the plutocrats, first.
To the wealthy the tax code is never far from mind: keep the tax rate low for high earners and also infest the tax code with vermin, usually called loopholes.
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The rich finance folks, do not like Senator Warren, and did not like President Obama, who cares and thus they are consistent. But that does not mean her policies are good for the economy either. Powerful anti-trust work is definitely needed, as is rolling back the tax cuts and changing how we tax capital gains is also necessary. As is figuring out a way to control education debt, improve education and getting to universal health insurance, and improving the quality of healthcare and healthcare access. But full government take over of all this is not necessarily the best way to do it. Public-Private partnerships are good solutions- just ask Germany and their high quality healthcare system. being angry at greedy finance folks is deserved and may make us feel righteous, but that does not mean punishing them is good policy. Sen Warren's aggregate of policies feels just too much.
Taxes aren’t punishment and outrage isn’t anger. No one is punishing the rich for being rich. We’re requiring them to contribute in proportion to the their benefit from the system and, hopefully, curtailing their capacity to influence policy beyond their headcount.
We need not imagine universal healthcare. Germany’s system evolved out of Germany’s history; ours will out of ours. We have Medicare and Obamacare. One is immensely popular and successful; the other modestly successful and under incessant attack. The fight over Obamacare has made plain that any reform of private insurance, no matter how meek or sensible, will be met with implacable bad-faith resistance. The road to a German-like system of highly regulated nonprofit insurers is therefore nonexistent.
Expanding Medicare by contrast is the model of simplicity. Administratively, we just lower the eligibility age. Fiscally, we impose a tax on employers in lieu of premiums. The rest is details.
Why so surprised?
While the greed of some on Wall Street is acknowledged, the more measured financial gurus are arguing against the subtle less publicized plans that are opaque to readers: like to tax stock transactions, advisor fees, etc...which would effect most if not all Americans by way of their retirement plans.
Maybe stop to think for a moment how that may change things for workers and, more importantly, retirees:
There are over 140 million people who work full or part time who have pensions or other retirement plans.
There are over 40 million retirees who also rely on plans from their work.
Added fees will only be transmitted to the beneficiaries of retirement plans, this could effect retirees dramatically.
Wall Street may be all about money and greed prevails, but it controls much of your financial well being.
Guys like Dr. Krugman like to paint pretty picture we all can gasp at and agree with, but he real story is usually more complex. As they say, read the fine print.
1
since Medicare isn't a single payer (eg, Medicare advantage) it isn't clear to me why many people think single government payer is a plus. who really wants Congress to determine what services are covered? that would seem to be the end of coverage for abortion, at a minimum.
Single-payer is a plus because monopsony.
The government won’t choose what’s covered because not covering care is political suicide. That’s why Medicare covers basically everything under its aegis (eye care and dental excepted). What the government can do, as the rest of the OECD shows, is control costs by regulating prices.
Our existing so-called system doesn’t control costs. If it did, we wouldn’t have the world’s most expensive healthcare by half. Medicare does control costs. Let’s use it.
Two big court decisions come to mind when thinking about capitalism and concentrated wealth. Loosely stated, 1. Corporations are people; and 2. Money is free speech. These two decisions practically ensure that those without significant resources will be ignored or coerced.
Those with great wealth have great power for good or ill. This power will not be given up gently. Ms. Warren must make a convincing case that she knows how to achieve a more equitable economic balance for all voters without the chaos predicted by the rich "snowflakes."
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I'm always reminded of Heller's Closing Time quote. "Men earned millions producing nothing more substantial than changes in ownership." But they've talked themselves into a position where they are doing the heavy lifting when they're simply the ones handling the money and have siphoned off enough of it that they've tilted the entire economy. Of course the people were going to come for them eventually. And they will play victim to the last.
1
Excellent, excellent Paul. I wish you would mention Bernie Sanders when you speak in favor of for Medicare For All since this is where Ms. Warren got the notion to speak up for it, but isn't the need obvious when every other major country has it?
I also would hesitate to support Ms. Warren for president. She does not have the force of character nor quick command of the facts that Bernie Sanders has, and would be easy prey in debate for the wily man who happens to be president.
1
Nonsense. Warren’s debate answers are the most fact-laden on stage. And quick? She’ll skewer Trump as Clinton never could.
I don’t know why anyone goes to all the trouble of running for president only to explain what we can’t have and shouldn’t fight for.
1
"...to a large extent they’re coming from people with vast wealth but fragile egos, whose rants should be discounted appropriately."
OK, I've discounted the rants on wealth from George Soros and Warren Buffet.
Next?
1
Why does society need billionaires? What is their social utility?
33
@Kinsale
It takes $250,000 to create a decent paying job. A billionaire means 4,000 good jobs.
That's a lot of social utility.
3
Businesses don’t create jobs because they have money. They create jobs when the have customers, customers with money to pay for products or services. So, it’s actually consumers who create the jobs. More consumers with more money = more jobs.
71
@Kinsale
Our system is based on the idea that people should benefit from their ideas, from the companies they build. If Ford never build a single car, we wouldn’t have an auto industry, if Boeing hadn’t started building planes, specifically for an industry that didn’t exist as we know it today, we wouldn’t have airplane manufacturing capability, and the thousands of high paying middle class jobs. Not to mention the ripple effects and the jobs they produce, everything from seats, to windows, to electronics, the list goes on.
People have a right in this country to be rich, what is currently wrong with this capitalist society, is that corporate greed has enriched a small segment of the population. And so much wealth is being concentrated into too few hands, and with it comes political power that leaves out the very people that give our elected officials the power to govern, which is us, the voter. Trump, he isn’t interested in the people he claims to, if he did, neither Trump, or the GOP at large wouldn’t have passed a tax break that benefits his ilk over the very people Trump claims to be against which is the “swamp” the “elite”.
Your question demonstrates a lack of critical thinking, which is the reason why we have a president that going to be impeached.
5
you might also ask this pertinent question: Trump's re-election campaign is setting fundraising records. Democrats are worried. Who is it that is sending him the money? Somehow, I doubt he is getting this largess out of small donations.
Face it. Wall Street loves Trump. He is their kind of guy, The white power kind of guy, who will push the rabble into shantytowns, just like in South or Central America.
30
This just shows what an extraordinarily supine, and politically tin-eared, approach Obama had towards anything that the unimaginative conventional political wisdom of the time considered to be sacred cows -- in this case the supremacy of the free investment markets. Thank God we have people with vision running now!
14
@Bill
What happened did I doze off, and wake up to a new president, or are we still impeaching the old one. And by old I mean the 73 year old orange tinted, bitter old man. Who took your money and shoved it in his pocket, yessiree, that’s deep thinking tax policy that sure to benefit someone, just not you and me.....
1
Why can’t Democrats just simplify their messaging? Why does everything have to be so complex? For example, the Trump Tax cuts have failed. The economy is decelerating and our debt is increasing. The rich did not reinvest that money in US jobs. They did not live up to their end of this deal. “Repeal it”. Save the complexity for the sub-committees.
939
@EW
Agreed. My suggestion is .."It doesn't trickle down and it never has."
The 1% have enriched themselves far more than the other 99% have.
143
@EW
These are all complex statements and will be hard to understand for someone who has not spent time thinking about the topics. "Lock her up" and 'Lock him up" are much simpler, or "Trump does not know what he is doing".
61
@EW If you actually listen to the Democratic candidates you will hear them say essentially what you just wrote over and over and over again. It's not a problem of overly-complex message. The problem is that no one is listening, or at least not the people you'd like to convince.
36
A 2017 ITEP study examined eight years ('08 to '15) of corporate financial filings and found that the average effective corporate tax rate was 21.4%, and 100 corporations managed to avoid all federal taxes in at least one year of the study. The 2017 tax law failed to close loopholes that enabled this rampant tax avoidance, and the consequences, which many economists predicted, are becoming evident. The Treasury Department last month reported that corporate tax collections in 2018 declined 31 percent from the previous year.
“We cannot pretend that corporate tax avoidance has no cost,” Gardner said. “Corporations zeroing out their tax bills or paying single-digit federal tax rates mean a substantial loss in federal revenue. Calls to cut critical programs and services in the wake of these corporate tax cuts are absolutely connected.” The companies avoiding income taxes in 2018 represent a range of segments of the U.S. economy:
Computer maker International Business Machines (IBM) earned $500 million in U.S. income and received a federal income tax rebate of $342 million.
The retail giant Amazon reported $11 billion of U.S. income and claimed a federal income tax rebate of $129 million.
The streaming service Netflix paid no federal income tax on $856 million of U.S. income.
Beer maker Molson Coors enjoyed $1.3 billion of U.S. income in 2018 and received a federal income tax rebate of $22.9 million.
Automaker General Motors reported a negative tax rate on $4.3 billion of income.
2
You overestimate the sophistication of the billionaire.
The modern billionaire's life is fairly similar to that of a medieval monarch. He rules all he sees. There's an elite club of billionaires he considers his equal, but most people are inconsequential nobodies.
He goes into work and everyone works for him. He goes to restaurants he could buy on a whim. He gives away a paltry amount of his wealth and gets massively celebrated for it because a paltry sum for him can change entire communities.
In sum, he's surrounded by people telling him how great he is. By saying you want to tax him more, you're saying that you don't necessarily think that the billionaire is as great as everyone in his bubble tells him he is. And he's angry and fighting back, because he firmly believes in his own greatness. He believes he DESERVES that money. And that's where it's coming from.
1181
@Kevin What's funny about your analogy (which I do not dispute), is that the majority of Medieval Kings actually understood that they existed in contract with the people that they ruled. There were those who were capricious and selfish and unjust, certainly, but the most Kings, at least in Europe, understood the feudal contract. They were owed obedience, service, and loyalty by their subjects, but in turn they owed protection, stability, and competence TO those subjects.
That is what Billionaires today lack; any sort of concept that society is a contract between ALL of us, and when it gives them the means to achieve great wealth, they have a responsibility to the society that gave them that opportunity in the first place.
219
@Samuel EXCELLENT point to an great analogy!
To update both your point and Kevin's analogy a little: I remember in an episode of "Downtown Abbey" a discussion amidst the Crawley family regarding their responsibilities to the welfare of the villagers when contemplating decisions about maintaining and managing their estate; in another episode, Robert Crawley states how everyone should be provided "the dignity of work".
These statements really stood out to me at the time because I realized they were so antithetical to the current thinking of Krugman's now aptly named "Wall Street Snowflakes".
71
@Samuel The other big difference: Those feudal kings WERE the government, with bureaucrats and armies to fund. Today's equivalent invest heavily in subverting the government to defend them and their assets. And they succeed far more often than not.
82
I seriously doubt that I will ever live to see the day when the rich are finally obligated to pay their fair share in taxes, but it does make a dandy reason to get up and go the the gym every morning.
462
@Larry From Motown You might find this interesting https://taxfoundation.org/summary-latest-federal-income-tax-data-2018-update/
The most important points: the top 1% paid 37% of the income taxes, the top 5% paid 58%, the top paid 69%, and the top 50% paid 97%.
I'm sure there are individuals whose taxes are lower, but on average the wealthy pay quite a bit and the bottom half pay almost nothing.
7
@Dr B you may find it interesting that most taxes paid by those who aren’t BillionIres or Millionaires are paid in fees, fines, property taxes, state taxes, sales taxes, etc !
40
@Dr B You are correct, the poor pay very little income tax... that is because they HAVE VERY LITTLE INCOME. Please also note that the bottom 50% of the population owns about 1% of the wealth. You expect those without resources to pay the country's bills?
126
We've been there before with Theodore Roosevelt's "malefactors of great wealth" and later with his cousin Franklin. As Gordon Gekko said in "Wall Street," "Greed is good." The pendulum of income inequality has swung so far that it must be corrected or we will have, as Trump seems intent on, a pal Putin-style authoritarian kleptocracy where "Greed is good" for those oligarchs who already have the wealth. It's time to really "drain the swamp" both in Washington and on Wall Street.
531
@Paul Wortman Hopeing that ineffective, corrupt politicians will fix government is insanity. That you'd put your faith in them to control our health care is evil and will result in much harm to billions.
@David
"Hopeing (sic) that ineffective, corrupt politicians will fix government is insanity"
Agreed. Vote Democrat! Throw out Trump, McConnell, and the rest of the gang!
11
@Paul Wortman
Maybe it's time for the 80% to rise up and take back America. With force if needed.
That or just all of us 80%ers should just take a day off and not show up. No police, no garbage men, no teachers, no airline pilots, no wait staff. No one to do the work. The 20% can show us all how important they are that they deserve a wayyyyyyyy outside % of wealth.
Or even the 95% can not show up. No doctors, no management. Let the CEO's and Athletes and Finance Guys run the show without our help.
9
The criticism of Warren and Sanders by the oligarch class is certainly to be expected--one doesn't get to be in that class by adopting a mindset of "sharing is caring".
But how many of you think that the additional virulence directed at Warren has a nice wide chunk of misogyny added to it? A resentment by the boys of the smartest girl in the class who isn't interested in impressing or being impressed by them in the slightest?
Because I surely think that's part of it.
1041
@Glenn Ribotsky 100%. Most of the Wall Streeters I know got rich in order to control beautiful women. They're not going to take kindly to an older, 'un-hot' woman telling them they can't do it anymore.
81
@Glenn Ribotsky
I was at a party prior to Obama's first term, and at a point a woman looked around the room of car-carrying liberals and asked, " seriously, are we ready to elect a black man?"
I told her to leave the room and I would ask the same question about women.
Yes, it is misogyny.
Racial animus runs deep, but gender animus runs deeper.
90
@Glenn Ribotsky Nailed it!
14
Ms. Warren's political philosophy can be summed up as, "We're all in this together." Which doesn't mean that everyone gets an equal share of income or anything else for that matter, but it means that we need policies that ensure that the rising tide lifts all the boats.
Most billionaires think differently. Their philosophy can be summed up as, "I worked hard to get mine. I'm not responsible if you aren't getting enough for yourself." They take individual responsibility to the extreme and feel they shouldn't be forced to contribute to the well being of others.
Of course "I've got mine..." is extremely short sighted, as when the average wage earner can no sustain a household in this country, they don't have disposable income to buy things from the billionaires' business. Henry Ford understood that a century ago.
Warren is simply more outspoken that Obama was about this philosophy. That's why she scares Wall Street. She is riling up millions of people, far outnumbering those who work on Wall Street. And something will have to give.
568
@Ken L I am 90% in your boat but I save that 10% resistance for saying, I do want to motivate those, who just sit and want, to be lifted by others. I want to say to those who refuse to lift a finger to know that it will not be spoon fed to them.
I am also 100% with you, that being the greediest and wanting to take it all, will, also, not be tolerated.
18
@Ken L
The 'I've got mine....' point of view is heard more loudly from those that INHERITED their money.
I saw someone build a company from nothing. In planning for his death he sold off part of it and made the Forbes 400 list. He planned for his company to be his legacy, so his employees to have jobs for life.
He was a bit eccentric, claimed credit for everything but always left money of the table. He said you got rich by letting others get rich with you. He was good to his employees but should have planned better for the long run.
Ironically his own children were wealthier than he was for most of their lives) courtesy of their mother's father.
The company remained quite profitable after the founder's death but his children grew weary of dealing with things. They sold the company off to one of the brands they imported. The founder never would have done so.
The staff that made that brand and the company a success was let go - a bloodbath. The new owners saw sales drop like a rock.
Already rich trust fund owners got richer while others saw their lives upended.
But the already rich got theirs.
69
@WorldPeace24/7
“I do want to motivate those who just sit and wait to be lifted by others.”
You have perfectly described Trump’s adult children.
32
The snowflakes are everywhere and they own most everything that has to do with what we see and hear.
In this hypercapitalist era, their biggest fear is of the Great Clawback that is to come. They fear they will lose their grip on both establishments and control over what we earn, what conditions we earn it under and most of all, how, as a society, we pool our resources to reward ourselves with the normal things societies around the world enjoy, as a matter of course.
Trump will be attacking Warren with Pocahontas insults. We need to know she will handle him much better next time and every other time around. Trump has enough money to dig up oppo research, not to mention friends in the Kremlin who are really good at digging. What might be lurking out there? We need to know.
Who among the others who are running might have some hidden issue? The media has done a poor job of vetting, this time around. It had better not come back to bite.
The oligarchy's biggest fear is Bernie Sanders. Why? Because he wants real change and that is the last thing they want.
For all the horrors of the Trump presidency, both establishment elites have gotten what they wanted. Now, they want to keep things more or less the same. Sanders, Warren (to a lesser obvious extent) want to transform.
Who will voters pick?
326
Want to understand just how much the elites control? Take the E. Warren-Larry Summers feud. It's about more than ego:
"And so throughout the Clinton administration, Summers supported financial deregulation in the name of progress. Policy changes that allowed private financial barons to generate greater wealth were good. Growing the pie created a bigger body of economic activity that could be taxed to fund social safety net programs. Well-designed taxes were intended to maximize the money available for government programs while incentivizing socially productive business innovation. Their effect on inequality ― something better addressed through anti-poverty programs, if at all — was an afterthought.
To Summers, there was no need to worry about financial institutions abusing the privileges they received from deregulation. Testifying before Congress in 1998 on the need to deregulate derivatives, Summers maintained: “The parties to these kinds of contract are largely sophisticated financial institutions that would appear to be eminently capable of protecting themselves.”
It seems almost laughable from this side of the AIG collapse, but at the time, most members of Congress were eager to agree with Summers. But not everyone. And certainly not everyone in academia."
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/elizabeth-warren-wealth-tax-larry-summers_n_5dbcbb23e4b0d8b441cef1eb
115
@Rima Regas
It's so good to read your comments again. I've missed you or been reading different articles than you comment on.
30
@Rima Regas. Welcome back, Roma Regas! I’ve missed reading your comments.
35
Suppressed guilt is a powerful emotion. Professor Krugman has analyzed this perfectly: Wall Street titans have looked in the mirror, and many of them are not entirely thrilled with what they see. But of course that doesn’t mean they have experienced their come to Jesus moment, in which they bare their souls to the wider world. However much they may recognize internally the blots on their souls, they must project the superiority of the magnanimous billionaire whose largesse makes society better. And anyone (like Elizabeth Warren) who doesn’t recognize that or goes farther to call this out as a fraud must be neutralized.
All this seems pretty clear. What I cannot understand is why Warren’s honest assessment of the self-dealing on Wall Street still hasn’t caught on with the victims, the White non-college working class who would rather stick with a shady billionaire in the White House who has done nothing for them the past three years.
549
You expressed my thoughts exactly!
16
@Ockham9 Historians, sociologists, economists and others have pondered the reasons why certain countries have not had socialist revolutions (not necessarily violent ones) for years. Werner Sombart was a German economist who wrote "Why is There No Socialism in America?" in 1906. His answer is most often summarized by this quote: "Revolutions are wrecked on shoals of roast beef and apple pie." That is, our class consciousness and possible resentment of the rich has been muted by our relatively high standard of living, even among the poor. If a family can afford a Sunday dinner of roast beef, how poor are they? Today we would use the example of a car or an iPhone. There's a whiff of bread-and-circuses thought: the masses are content with their lot and as long as they're distracted by enough bread and meaningless entertainment, they'll stay that way. Gramsci's ideas on hegemony also apply here. Who gets to tell the story? America's story is "as long as you work hard you'll succeed." Sub-groups within the dominant culture that this does not necessarily apply to are ignored for various reasons: i.e., black people who are disadvantaged by systemic racism are told that racism doesn't exist; they're just lazy. That whole "pull-yourself-up-by-your-bootstraps," trope was challenged by the Depression, yet it came back. People have vastly different life chances but we choose to believe it's the individual who's at fault. We have no sense of social capital, no idea of a common good.
32
@Ockham9 The White non-college working class thinks that Black folks and immigrants (both legal when they're not white, and illegal) are the sources of all evil in society. Every time Trump says or does something racist, they think 1950 is going to return.
12
Simple answer to your question, Dr. Krugman - they simply don't want the party to ever end.
3
The real tell here is that Warren does not remotely resemble the raving socialist the Street depicts, and they know it. She favors sensible regulation to reinstall the necessary guardrails on functioning, sustainable capitalism, period. It's reached the point where we need to pay attention to the howlers and then do the exact opposite. Otherwise our national goose is cooked.
5
What I have found interesting and distressing is how hard people in some of these areas fight to prevent changes that would benefit them, their businesses, their families, and yes, the country as a whole. Even more fascinating is how much money they are willing to spend on keeping things the same. All Americans benefit if there is access to medical care when and where it's needed. That's not the way it is now. Now we do wallet biopsies before we go to the doctor.
It would be much simpler for providers and patients if there was one system and nationwide coverage. If you are living in Idaho but have an accident in Texas wouldn't it ease your mind and your family's to know that the care is covered when you are far from home? It's one less thing to worry about. The richest don't have to worry about money and medical care. This may not ever cross their minds. But it does concern the rest of us.
How many people have had to fight their way through claim denials multiple times? How many people are threatened by collection agencies while waiting for insurance to pay the bill so they can pay the balance? How many people forgo medical care because, even with coverage, they can't spare the money?
This is about a basic necessity in modern lives. Preventive care and timely care is important. Medicare for All, if it's phased in carefully, could solve most of the issues.
11/4/2019 7:27pm first submit
816
@hen3ry
The explanation:
Gated communities have changed the willingness of the very wealthy to consider society as a whole because they can now isolate themselves from it - or think they can.
50
When the rich have medical concerns, they cut in line for treatment from the best doctors that people with expensive insurance cannot even access. And rich people will have that same access even after the system changes.
34
@Concerned Citizen I don't know where you live but where I live we have a major hospitals and a smaller ones with in 10 miles of each other. 4 new medical facilities have been been built within the last 5 years. We are suburb of Atlanta with a population around 20,000. I keep wondering how many more are going to be built. The money in healthcare is staggering.
11
I understand why they are clamoring, what I don’t get is why there aren’t more balanced defenses of her positions by mainstream writers. This one is welcome, but its not enough. The media continues its efforts to depict the “good folks on both sides” of every issue. There are no “good” greedy people. None.
1187
@Doug So the people that want to keep the money they earn are greedy, but the people that want to tax them are virtuous. Socialism is truly the gospel of envy.
10
@Registered Repub That last line sounds lovely, but it is not true, personally or statistically. There are loads of wealthy (presumably un-envious) socialists. While Doug's last two lines are equally vapid, perhaps a truer dictum is that socialism places fairness on a population level as its guiding principle?
56
And where is the thoughtful argument that when the middle class does better, business gets more CUSTOMERS? Wall Street should wake up and welcome the idea of 2 billion new investors.
87
Over nearly two decades since the turn of the Twenty First Century it has become eyes wide open and mouths agape obvious that economic justice in our nation has no support in institutions controlled by republicans in congress and in boardrooms around the nation. Even our Supreme Court ignores the idea of economic justice is real as it rules in favor of supporting wealth and wealth holders over all other fiscal interests of the citizens of the nation who too often find themselves struggling to maintain the economics of the necessities of survival. There is no concept in boardroom economics nor in republican political enclaves that the economic survival is a fundamental economic concern for every human and economics is direly connected the quality of survival. Economic justice is a basic human right not a spoil for the success of self selected pursuers of wealth who play a power game of win-win accrual of wealth against the rest of society. When individual wealth begins to challenge the wealth of a nation the governing institutions of a democratic nation have the responsibility to control challenges to their economic responsibilities for all citizens.
3
@Dennis: The US subsidizes charlatans to propagate delusions. It reaps what it sows.
1
Instead of fragile egos, I would posit that the motivation is both direct and protective self-interest. Just as athetes that make the majors, the top tier of business leaders have to be some combination of the most talented and the most self-interested.
It's not their fragile egos that have Wall Street fat cats complaining about Elizabeth Warren. No, it's what Warren represents: a serious attack on the wealth, power, and privilege of the financial sector.
The fat cats are smart enough to know that her most ambitious plans have little chance of success, even if the Democrats win both houses of Congress. But Warren's candidacy encourages progressives and will undoubtedly lead to more calls for reining in Wall Street by future candidates. And a Warren presidency just might bring the start of reform.
The "snowflakes" of Wall Street can feel the heat. That's why they've begun to panic.
10
Greed defines Wall Street -- it's not a movie subtitle, it's a reality. After record profits with mild regulations, they still fight for (and got) less regulation -- on what basis? Certainly not need, not competitiveness. They don't care that income inequality is killing the middle class and therefore the country's economic health. They just want more more more.
15
You failed to mention an enormous, and unneeded, tax cut. Why are there billionaires?
2
@Andy - "They just want more more more"
That's how they keep score. It's not buying power, it's status and bragging rights. IMHO the Financial sector is fundamentally parasitic, siphoning off wealth that could be used for more productive things. Rentiers is the technical term.
2
Yes the Wall Street types are crazy against any rules. They do get their share of incoming flack... but they deserve it. The thing I despise is that they think they deserve the money and wealth they have due to their hard work.
I happen to spend three long years in a Wall street company and if you asked each senior manager if that working 60+ hours a week was more difficult than the 60+ hours that the maintenance worker or someone in HR or technology people worked, you would get an answer "of course my job it harder so I deserve more money for it". They universally believed that the money men (and the few women) had a harder job than everyone else.
This "I'm better and work harder" was emphasized by the fact that many companies in 1960 and 70s and even into the early 1990s had free lunch and dinner for senior managers but of course not for the masses. Those lowly people should and had to fend for themselves.
8
Of course the mega rich, whether it be on Wall Street or any other sector of the economy are greedy and don't like the idea of being criticized for the crony capitalist they are. Their attitude is: "As long as I've got mine, bleep you". They can't have too much wealth! The problem as I and others have mentioned before is the large numbers of voters who believe that by cutting taxes on the wealthy, the mega rich will create great paying jobs (in large numbers). The opposite is true. They horde the money to buy more stock and increase their wealth, plus buy expensive toys. To the people (voters) who believe the tax cut or the wealthy theory, I say: "I've got tropical beach front property in Nome, Alaska to sell you".
1
Mr Krugman's use of the term "snowflake" is a rhetorically fun one -- depicting some of the most powerful and sneaky people in the world as easily melted and ephemeral, as conservatives have described liberals. Surely it is an irony meant to tease rather than convict.
But I'm not surprised the 'fat cats' are publishing their anxieties -- they're also stirring up the thinner cats who still have portfolios but worry Warren would make them even skinnier.
I love Warren and would vote for her in a second. Yet I suspect the "dark money and power forces" are plotting how to undermine her and support more moderate folks like Buttigieg, who would handle them more like Obama did. After all -- the country runs on oil, gas, and the money that pays for that and everything else.
As always, we Democrats like to analyze and think with our heads. and hearts. The Republicans with the cash? More apt to check the financial section of the WSJ and call their people before deciding how to feel about things.
7
@SGK "we Democrats like to analyze and think with our heads and hearts."
I love and support the democrats, but I think that they always overthink and over intellectualize everything. Some of them analyze and think about a candidate until they think of a reason to not support said candidate. Remember all of those democrats who could see no difference between Ms. Clinton and The Donald. Many said that Ms. Clinton did not exhibit sufficient empathy. Say what?
Politics comes down to winning an election. In the words of Moscow Mitch -- "those people who win elections make policy, those who don't win go home."
What we seem to have is a party of nice smart people (democrats) who are sensitive and are analyzing and debating issues but they tend to not win elections.
The republicans are not smart and don't do much thinking but they control the presidency, the senate, and many state governments.
Is this because cash carries the day in politics?
4
After they spend all they could on their pleasures and on influencing public policy to help their wealth grow, the rich hoard money, keeping it unavailable to most people to invest in themselves,or sometimes even to live. There cannot be political democracy without a decent amount of economic democracy.
15
You need look no further than the Winklevoss twins for unearned wealth in the financial sector. Talk about a drag on the economy. That a 19 year old has the same financial wisdom as the "titans" of industry is hardly surprising. Far from elite, Wall Street is mostly just a scam.
Remember, finance in general is really only about the velocity of money. How do you get liquidity from point A to point B quickly? Wall Street investors are nothing more than monetary crossing guards. They're pretty bad at the job too. Does a crossing guard deserve a 7 digit salary? I thought not. Please tax the daylights out of them. Give 'em a good kick while you're at it.
20
Back in 1936, Franklin Delano Roosevelt made a speech in which he said (I am paraphrasing) "the monied interests of this country hate me, and I welcome their hatred." He then went on to campaign against big money and win a second term as President in 1936.
If the democrats nominate the right candidate -- a candidate who can laugh and make fun of his/her opponents as FDR did and bring together all of the parts of society who do not benefit from big money -- then Wall Street would be the perfect thing to run against.
Could Professor Warren conduct such a campaign? She probably could. Of course, the fact that she is a woman will cost her about 5% in votes as it did Ms. Clinton. If Ms. Clinton had been a man she would be president today.
36
Since Reagan in the 80's, capitalism and conservative politics have increasingly been marked by greed and social irresponsibility. Now with manufacturing jobs threatened and inequality between rich and poor rising around the globe, we are beginning to see anger building among those who feel left behind. Ironically much of this anger is being utilized by right wing politicians who are redirecting it toward others who have been left behind, including immigrants and minorities. The true villians, though, are the capitalist masters who care only about profit and their own wealth. To these people, Warren and Sanders are existential threats who must be stopped as soon as possible. Conservative politicians are required to contol the narrative and continue the myth of the goodness of capitalism.
20
Time has come that Americans should be able to enjoy the same general rights that European countries and Canada bestow to their citizens .
Affordable and accessible healthcare , free of red tape and immoral limits , education , housing, civil rights and clean environment.
The greedy barons of Wall Street are against these “ civil “ goals and will do anything, using the excuse of their contributions to various charities, to make this country enslaved and deprived of human right that in any other industrialized country are taken for granted .
The only way to achieve these changes are to vote “ en mass “ in 2020 to eliminate the despotic and immoral GOP , that is against the well being of Americans .
30
Tell the Wall St folks that a slightly smaller share of a much larger pie is a bigger slice than they currently have. Education, infrastructure, stable and affordable health care, stable retirement etc are all factors that benefit them directly.
For instance, 5 million households going bankrupt over a 10 year period due medical bills absolutely is a burden to Wall St.
50% of households having nothing to put in a 401k is a burden to Wall St.
Egregious student loan debt hinders or delays home buying and birth rates, yet another burden to Wall St.
Wall St above all should know you have to spend money to make money.
24
Professor Krugman puts all the blame for 2008 fully on Wall Street. This is a narrative that is disingenuous at best and he knows it. He willfully ignores so many other root causes including a too-easy Fed; the risks forced upon responsible lenders by Andrew Cuomo’s 1990’s HUD; cheerleading GSE leaders who testified to Congress that there was no safer asset than housing; a Congress that failed to increase its oversight of the GSE’s as most notably explained by Barney Frank saying he wanted to ‘roll the dice’ some more with housing; the enactment of FAS 157 which destroyed bank balance sheets until Barney Frank pushed for its removal in March 2009.... and of course the reckless lenders who road the dangerous ride created by government and the even more irresponsible consumers who believed them all.
So it’s no wonder ‘Wall Street’ loathes these candidates who scapegoat a narrow slice of the financial system for their own self interest. Aided and abetted by irresponsible op-Ed’s like this, the candidates further divide an already polarized country.
I’m old enough to remember when successful people were respected and admired. Their achievements were other’s aspirational goals. Now they’re treated as exploiters & grifters - which is exactly what comprises most of the political class. Communism took root in many other countries in just this way.
9
@Once From Rome So you automatically equate great wealth with success? If so, you are far more a part of the problem than the solution.
1
@Once From Rome when did communism ever takeover a capitalist country?
1
Uh, you need to read Michael Lewis, “The Big Short.” Then talk about the noble, successful class.
1
I don’t think most people know how much of the economy is controlled by the financial industry. A few private equity companies own the majority of companies that we think of as independent, loading them down with fees and debt and producing nothing.
5
I think a lot too people need to go to the children’s section of the library to read or re-read the story about the goose that laid the golden egg.
2
Unfortunately the goose is not for sharing. It sells the golden egg for its own gain so it can get better food, a bigger duck house etc.
8
@Steve Ell Except the people we're talking about here aren't the goose. They're the ones who grabbed all the eggs, chopped them up, mixed them with other substances, some of which turned out to be goose droppings, then sold their concoctions at a profit. Along the way, they took a little cut at every stage in the process (what Tony Soprano would call a "taste"). Then when people who thought they were buying gold figured out it was smoke and mirrors,they needed the treasury, into which they pay as little as legally (and sometimes illegally) possible to prop up their golden egg racket.
Their fear is misplaced. Sen. Warren as president will have little leverage unless the House and Senate are on her team.
1
I have always thought that you had to be basically greedy to acquire a lot of money, far more than you might ever need. It seems only natural that billionaires would oppose a political figure like Elizabeth Warren who would spread their hoard around among the less affluent.
9
The fact that the Wall Street elite are lining up against Elizabeth Warren is all I need to know that she is the one for the rest of to support.
40
It's clear that the hoarding of billions by the wealthy, many of them in finance, is not a good way to run an economy. We need a wealth cap for individuals. They'll still have their third and fourth houses/spouses and yachts. Mike Bloomberg should lead the way and give $30 billion to build a new mass transit system in NYC. He'd still have billions left over, and we'd name the thing after him of course!
44
@WRosenthal Boston needs a new transit desperately and would be a better choice for Bloomberg!
1
Perhaps if these billionaire wall streeters practiced some real civic virtue, they'd be better thought of outside of their bubble.
As they don't (barring the society fundraisers) it is left to others to figure out how to improve the lot of all members of society.
16
Really? The Gates Foundation supports wonderful work worldwide. The Templeton Foundation supports worldwide science research. The Pew Foundation supports many great causes. Individual Billionaires do plenty too. Ken Langone just gifted over $100 million to NYU med school to ensure that future med students attend for free. The recently deceased Charles Koch poured millions into philanthropy; New York City was an especially well endowed beneficiary. Facts completely refute your assertion.
6
@elise
Yes, the foundations do wonderful work and yes, it's not only from the goodness of their hearts. I bet they are able to deduct the cots of their philanthropy from their overall income from all sources.
2
In the "good old days" before globalization, that is, before 1980 when Reagan and the GOP took over, manufacturing was mostly in the US and Europe. Then the GOP and Reagan discovered China and the rest is history. Wall St prospered, Main St declined and the workers on Main St thought Trump would help them. Now we have more of the Reagan-style corruption gone big time with Rudy, Don Jr and Jared Kushner telling all how the Dem will take away their gas-guzzling autos, steaks and visits to the Emergency Room. The question is whether Main St has discovered why their health insurance is high, their retirement is low and why the Trump/Reagan/GOP promises to fix what it promised to fix in 2016.
53
Excellent article
We have the same in the UK with even golfers like Ian Poulter complaining about the Labour Party plan to squeeze the very rich. Mind you that will not affect Poulter since he is based in Miami.
15
"there's growing evidence that when the financial sector gets too big it actually acts as a drag on the economy"
Well past that point? You bet.
I sometimes wonder what happens when there's no more consumers who are able to borrow cheap money to buy good or services.
Yep, much of the good ol USA is headed to Pottersville.
20
Hmmm??? Finance: 1)starves the goose that lays the golden eggs, 2) shuttles individual wealth from the wages of labor to the capital of institutions that hoard in overpriced assets, 3) circulates money of lower intrinsic value replacing money in circulation with higher intrinsic and equal nominal value.
5
Just go back and read "The Politics of Rich and Poor" by Kevin Phillips from 1990. He spoke about the perils of the (Republican backed) overly leveraged and overly influential financial industry and the historical precedents of national decline when great nations allow that to happen.
18
"What this means is that you should beware of Wall Street claims that progressive policies would have dire effects. Such claims don’t reflect deep economic wisdom; to a large extent they’re coming from people with vast wealth but fragile egos, whose rants should be discounted appropriately." I think it was good that Warren provided answers about how she would pay for "Medicare for All." But why is she the only candidate being asked about how she would pay for health care? After all the recent attacks on her (even and especially among affluent Democrats) I found Mr. Krugman's column both refreshing and enlightening. Reading this made me feel grounded and put me back in touch with my political center of gravity. Good to hear confirmation from an (admittedly liberal) economist that electing Liz won't be the end of the world as we know it, and when I vote for her I'll feel just fine.
52
@wildwest
Go REM! "When I vote for her I'll feel just fine" could make a good slogan.
2
It is not about a threat. It is the perception of a threat. So those fragile egos billionaire's job is to convince people who are not even in the millions bracket, that the perceived threat is menacing them somehow.
That is where they will "invest" for the 2020 campaign. So the middle class and lower-middle-class people vote with the billionaires' best interest in mind, keeping them "great".
38
Because there is money to be made ... and there is money to be made by keeping the myth alive that we need unregulated wealth in order to have any form of economic success in this country. You attack that idea, that somehow we all collectively “owe” it to these ultra wealthy for the “privilege “ of employment through their good graces, and what you get in return is the “fire and brimstone” of the “world is going to end without us” speech.
When people finally realize that money can make money in virtually any kind of situation (just look at investing activity even in “poor” countries) , the most important being a level playing field (I.e. everyone participating has to play by the same rules/restrictions), and you’ll see that economic activity does not some to an end. Sure, some policies can stifle economic activity and growth, but seems to me that even when this country had marginal tax rates in the upper 70’s they all found ways to make money... then we will finally break our feverish obsession with idolizing the the wealthy as the “can’t live without them”
The only difference will be their rate of return, which, boo-hoo, may be smaller than before.
Not a single successful business person ever stopped growing their business because of taxes. Not. A. Single. One.
I also do not recall ever hearing about anyone refusing to earn more because their marginal tax rate went up.
Greed is good, it’s what keeps us motivated to do better, unregulated greed is unsustainable.
23
It looks like "woke" culture has finally seeped into wealthy circles. Good. It is often very difficult to economically justify or rationally explain obscene wealth.
9
Regulated capitalism is the engine that has raised the standard of living for more people in less time than any other form of socio-economic governance. Well, maybe China's state-run crony capitalism is competitive but at a considerable price for individual liberties.
The problem in our country is that the baby boomer generation has elected representatives who are determined to change our system to one closer to that of China.
Crony capitalism is trouncing regulated capitalism in our country. Between the enrichment of Congressmen/women and their associates through lobbying and the equation of speech with money by SCOTUS, our socio-economic structure is being destroyed.
We should treat Ms Warren's proposals to reform both the financial sector and the healthcare sector as aspirational. Progress in reforming both will generate needed investment in the social safety nets for the majority of Americans. They won't happen over night.
Perhaps Ms Warren and the democrats should be demanding to end the revolving door between elected office and lobbying. When that happens, more regulated capitalism will replace crony capitalism. Then her ambitions for the finance and healthcare sectors might be realized.
40
@TDurk
Warren already has an anti-corruption proposal to stop the revolving door between elected offices and lobbying firms.
2
Too often it's not muscle, but fat. And I think the market performance we're now seeing is exactly that.
Yeah my portfolio is growing, but it's a sugar high based on debt and tax cuts.
I'd love to see Warren and the Dems given a chance to INVEST in America rather than EXPLOIT and DRAIN our great nation.
PAY YOUR SHARE....
A little exercise will be good for you, and US.
44
Many of Warren's worthy goals could be accomplished by more politically acceptable means.
To have any hope of enacting her goals she must be elected.
Letting people under 65 buy into Medicare would expand medical insurance.
It is not necessary to take away employer supplied insurance from the 150 m who want to keep that insurance.
Taking away that insurance will lose the votes of many union members and it is working class votes that shifted to Trump and elected Trump in 2016.
A wealth tax is not necessary and would also lose a lot of voters.
Instead change the tax code.
Tax all dividends and capital gains as ordinary income raising 160 B /year.
Tax unrealized capital gains at death [eliminate step up in basis] raising 40 B /year.
400 B /year in tax due under present tax code is now not collected. Collect that tax.
A wealth tax will be attacked as unfair but many would support a change in the tax code that eliminates tax preferences.
17
@david
Uh, when I aged into Medicare eligibility, me, was flat out thrilled to not keep my employer health insurance. I am single and by going on Medicare with a modest Medicare C plan, I am paying only 2/3 of my employer premium and getting much better coverage with no, count them no, little mystery charges much after my doctor appointments, lab tests, etc. and saving half on co-pays.
The folks in my firm, a multinational corporation, are paying $1K+ monthly premiums, something has got to give. We are all making decent money, but this is ridiculous.
2
America is people banded together to create an enterprise on earth to sustain and grow its members. Every American should be born with a stake in the productivity of the nation. That share should entitle them to healthy and safe food, warm and safe housing, personal security, health care, an education, and a safe and accessible infrastructure. Past that, all should be free to accumulate as much wealth as they can.
3
GIVEN THAT That INCOME INEQUALITY HAS BEEN EXPONENTIAL FOR OVER 40 YEARS:
We need to Revolt, using Civil Disobedience. See for reference Thoreau, who influenced Gandi.
FEAR will be the only thing at this late democracy time that will work. Use Nonviolent Peaceful Resistance.
Make them fear us.
8
@Dart
they already do fear us and trump is counting on that and is working daily to escalate that fear
1
@Dart TO THE BASTILLE! (ok - we don't have a Bastille, but it gets the blood pumping.)
It's no surprise to see doctors more open to reform. Many are already practicing in essentially single payer/single provider systems, albeit on a more state/regional level. You didn't spend all that time and money training to be a doctor to work on a piece-rate basis for a top-heavy major insurer or provider "system".
It's increasingly hard to find doctors who would recommend that career to their kids for any reason beyond a drive to help others.
11
@Jack
Well also, it's not doctors who are draining and dragging down the medical situation, but pharmaceutical companies and corporations that run hospitals and clinics, and corporations that run insurance programs. All that is draining from the doctors as well as from the patients.
2
@Jack
Gee, what other reason should there be for aspiring to a career in medicine?
1
Warren is/would be more powerful than Donald Trump. That is what Wall Street is saying.
Wall Street went for Trump thinking he could be controlled and would come to center. They were wrong. But here comes Warren and they believe the world will end as they know it. Their fear and rhetoric is an indication of strong Warren to be.
19
@Marie Exactly right! Those poor Wall Streeters and the difficulty they must have living paycheck-to-paycheck. Give me a break! Many of them should have been imprisoned by Obama. Capitalism is fine, but to think more equity can't be implemented to ensure a more vibrant America is utter nonsense. The evidence shows we're becoming more oligarchic. Yup, they simply fear Warren.
4
Spot on Dr. K. I would imagine Chuck Schumer is getting an earful about Ms. Warren, who IMHO is far and away the best candidate and would make an excellent POTUS. I'm sure between now and the election that all that money they'll be throwing at so-called 'moderate' candidates will bring out some really ugly tactics from the portion of the Democratic Party that supported Hillary. This is why Bernie Sanders is so popular with younger, middle and lower income people, who also happen to be the majority of Dem voters. How much money is enough for the 1% people? What have they done for the country, really? Stock buy backs don't create jobs, and sticking your money offshore doesn't either. We need large structural changes to our country, and at least Ms. Warren has a vision that's more inclusive than any other candidate. The time for Baby Steps and Gradual Change is past. We've tried Republican Lite with Obama, and it doesn't work for the vast majority of the country. If offending a few thousand billionaires and multi-multi millionaires is the price we have to pay for a big change, I'd say that's the least of our worries, especially with McConnell and company still in power.
36
@JP
NO ONE should have a billion dollars !!!
it's too much power for a single person to have that doesn't
have to answer to anyone
3
Bravo!
And thanks for answering the question of where Buttigieg's money is coming from:
"It’s not surprising that Warren is getting very little money from the financial sector. It is, however, surprising that the top recipient isn’t Joe Biden but Pete Buttigieg, who’s running a fairly distant fourth in the polls. Is Biden suffering from the lingering effects of that old-time Obama rage?"
10
The Invisible Hand makes the financial community serve the larger society while seeking only its own profit. But the Hand does not stop the financial community from crashing the economy through seeking profit too strenuously. The financial community has actually discovered that it can make more profit if it thwarts the Invisible Hand's efforts to make it serve the larger society as it seeks its own profit. So we get banks that are too big to fail and are therefore spared the discipline of worrying about failure.
17
I got as far as "Given all the recent focus on health policy, you might think that the medical-industrial complex would be heavily involved in the Democratic primary race, going all-out to block Elizabeth Warren."
Not mentioning Bernie Sanders in this context is bizarre, to say the least. He's the guy who put medicare for all on the table in this election cycle, and he's a leading candidate in the Democratic primary. How do you ignore him here?
10
Inherited wealth is another itch to scratch. In my 40+ years in the private sector those with inherited wealth were the most likely to see themselves as Horatio Alger stories.
My uncle had gone from building the blue ridge parkway as a worker in one of the Great Depression work programs to build an amazing construction company.
When his oldest son died the funeral never mentioned the father. It was a story of rags to riches by a rich son. The rich see themselves as above the truth of their lives. See Trump, Donald (Jr or Sr).
52
After reading about the political unrest in Chile and the underlying causes one wonders if this country may some day face a similar situation. Our economy is strong and jobs plentiful but with rising income inequality health and education costs and company pensions disappearing could Chile be a canary in the coal mine.
8
The algorithms, which do all the thinking on Wall Street, can't handle progressive policies. Remember Y2K?
1
Being that the masters of our economy have horded wealth and claimed that "Trickle Down Economics" is reality, when in fact, it is rather Trickle up and OUT of the country economics should tell us all that we have to stop the exodus of wealth and investment funds out of the country being sent out by locusts of the highest order in nature. Senator Warren is absolutely correct in her seemingly excessive strategy which is called for by the condition of the possession of wealth in the economy and not whimsical. Rapid structural change has to occur to stop the bleeding of the nation's wealth and that means pressure on the wound that is Wall Street finance.
26
I'm a little confused between Ratner's recent piece and this one. Which one to trust more. I know where my biases lie . . . oh economists. But yes, there does not seem to be any self improving and criticism by those that are really around money.
3
Krugman is right. Wall Street should be concerned about more than petty insults, because Warren understands better than anyone Despite good intentions, Obama allowed Wall Street to write the rules for the disaster it created :
- Big banks were bailed out with virtually free loans while small and were allowed access to the best assets of failing regional banks.
- Millions of loans were grouped and sold at a discount to vultures like Mnuchin who found it more profitable to 'robosign' expulsion notices rather than renegotiate to keep people in their homes.
- AIG creditors were bailed out at at 100%, saving many irresponsible bets on derivatives. The AIG management that failed collected bonuses 'because they had contracts' while GM pensioners who also had contracts were forced to reduce their benefits.
The list goes on and on. Just maybe we could imagine more equitable rules that take the rest of us into consideration, not just the now even more too big to fail banks and the wealthiest individuals. Warren understands better than anyone just how skewed is the present system, and Wall Street is right to be concerned.
56
"It’s not surprising that Warren is getting very little money from the financial sector. It is, however, surprising that the top recipient isn’t Joe Biden but Pete Buttigieg, who’s running a fairly distant fourth in the polls."
Possibly because Buttigieg is intelligent, moderate, and articulate. (For most Americans, Warren comes up short on the "moderate" part.) If not for homophobia, Buttigieg could well be leading the pack.
8
@Garry The question was not about why *Warren* is not receiving money from the financial sector. She is not allowing it.
1
@Garry I'm personally scratching my head that Krugman is surprised. Biden has always been a typical Delaware shill for business.
Buttigieg needs to win something other than local office before running for president.
1
@Garry I find it hard to believe that wall street would favor intelligent, moderate and articulatr.
1
Prof. Krugman is wrong in claiming "In the aftermath of a devastating financial crisis, [Obama's] administration bailed out collapsing institutions on favorable terms." Most of the bailouts of financial firms, $193.8 billion of the $204.9 billion TARP Capital Purchase Program investments, took place before Obama took office. Once he was in office, the TARP program was modified to place limits on executive compensation. This resulted in bailed out firms returning the funds they had received as quickly as possible making the terms quite unfavorable. For example, Goldman Sachs had received $10 billion in on October 28, 2008. In addition to preferred shares paying a 5% dividend, the American people received warrants. On June 17, 2009, Goldman bought the shares back paying dividends of $318,055,555. They also paid $1.1 billion to buy back the warrants. The annualized cost to Goldman (and return to the American people) on this deal was 22.3%.
The major bailouts that took place during the Obama administration were of the auto industry (which had begun under GW Bush) and of homeowners (which began in April 2009).
4
@Dink Singer I would suggest since Goldman could pay back the loan so quickly, that they didn't need it in the first place, but took it because it kept the engine greased.
8
@Dink Singer , I partially agree with you in that Obama tried very hard after the crash to ensure continuity in financial governance within the US. However, the GOP instantly went into full Obama-opposition mode. When the time came to actually fund the Tarp legislation, the Republicans were in full cry that the US auto industry needed to go through bankruptcy. Concerns that this would also wipe out the parts suppliers across the US were brushed aside. As far as I understand it, bankruptcy would allow the companies to avoid paying pensions that their employees had been guaranteed and that many were counting on.
To howls of protest from the GOP, the US auto industry was saved, along with the parts supply and dealership networks that feed it.
8
I keep two maxims from J.K. Galbraith in mind when contemplating the Wall St. snowflakes:
1. Financial genius is a rising market
2. The management of money attracts a low caliber of talent
24
The discordant "philanthropies" of atonement for extreme wealth concentration are not as effective as rationally negotiated fiscal policy to achieve social objectives.
18
@Steve Bolger
Alright, that was fun. What the heck are we still doing up? I'm into the Peace of the night. Good writing there Steve. Yeah, Warren will get the wealth moving again.
2
I present a basic lesson; A government of the people exists for the welfare, defense, and to promote the prosperity of the nation and it's people. Senator Warren correctly proposes to assure the health of all the people without which this nation would collapse into chaos. A healthy nation is a productive nation and provides a vigorous tax base from which further prosperity springs. Pretty smart girl, huh?
33
Sorry Steve, but I'm going to have to go with the Noble laureate on this one:
"What this means is that you should beware of Wall Street claims that progressive policies would have dire effects. Such claims don’t reflect deep economic wisdom; to a large extent they’re coming from people with vast wealth but fragile egos, whose rants should be discounted appropriately."
39
Trump was gaining business investment at the pace of $100 billion per month until...
the dems took control of Congress.
Krugman, read rational expectations theory to understand economics.
as the dems took control of congress, the stock market tanked $5.5 trillion, consumer cofidence dropped ten points and business investment shrank $40 instead of keeping the plus $100 billion per month pace.
Now, the stock market has recovered all $5.5 trillion.
We are off to the races again.
1
@John Huppenthal How does a rising stock market help the overwhelming number of Americans who have no shares in it, in fact the 40% or so of Americans who don’t even have $400 for an emergency expense? Do you still believe in the “trickle-down” effect? Do you still believe in Santa Claus or the tooth fairy? Wasn’t it Trump who said to some kid on the phone at Christmastime that around age 7 is when you stop believing in Santa Claus?
John. I am missing part of your post where you refer to the deficit and who is really funding this expansion. And what happens to the value of the dollar in 5 years when bread costs $4 a loaf. Please finish you wonderfully congratulatory post.
Greed knows no bounds. The stock market is a rigged scam for rich people. How is your high frequency algorithm treating you?
Yea, rich people could be emotionally disturbed snowflakes, but out of a mistrust in all capitalism has built, that's what this article misses. The fourth industrial revolution that is certainly a direct by product of the capitalism represented by those on Wall Street, is practically guaranteed to bring about a new era of science fiction become fact that will eliminate many of the income inequality barriers that are causes of beliefs espoused by the author of this article.
1
@Marc Wolsky
I imagine that once there are machines to do everything, our wealthy benefactors will find it convenient to engineer some plague to wipe out all the superfluous, whiny riffraff demanding income equality. That will be the true fourth industrial revolution.
Paul says: “What this [Wall Street fuming about Warren] means is that you should beware of Wall Street claims that progressive policies would have dire effects.”
What it also means is Warren is exactly on target, has hit the nail right on the head. America should vote for Warren, at least as far as this subject is concerned,
139
It takes over $250,000 of capital to create a decent job. That's why U.S. median household income is $63,400 while France is at less than $37,000.
Warren is proposing that we take hundreds of billions of dollars of capital and begin to consume it, ala European style.
Supposedly, this will be good for the poor- not!
Also, we now have a million more women in college than men. The competitive advantage that college confers is entirely dependent on capital.
Without financial capital, the competitive advantage shifts to men from women as human capital progressively becomes more important, capital replaces human muscles and stamina and requires organization and cooperative skills instead.
There are over 3 billion adults in the world. Hundreds of millions live in multi-dimensional poverty, without electricity and running water, living on rats to survive.
These adults need over 500 trillion additional capital for decent jobs.
Warren's solution? Eat our corn seed. Burn off $20 trillion in built up capital.
1
@John Huppenthal Warren isn't proposing an end of capital. She's proposing that the extremely wealthy pay more back to the system that fosters their wealth. Do we even need billionaires? What societal good do they do that would be accomplished if they were only 1/2 billionairs, or 1/4 billionaires?
78
@John Huppenthal Last I checked, France isn't on its third straight year of declining life expectancy. We are.
Talk all you want about "eating our corn seed"--all these other western countries clean our clocks.
21
John Please read my response to your previous post. $4 for a loaf of bread is not prosperity. Largest, most beautiful, perfect deficit will be our undoing. Just ask any republican.
3
It's a Wall Street show by those who run the shows. They run TV, They run Trump, They run Congress, they run it all, into the ground being hares, and later we turtles fix the economy.
Consider the fact that for many decades prior to the big push in a Dakota for usury laws deregulation, people actually had savings. Even I did! Then after usury rates were untied, the banks went berserk preying on the nation with credit, and now all the money is at the top handled by your snowflakes there and now no one has cash and too much credit. We have gone from a nation of savers with little credit to a nation of no savings and usury rate credit because of Republicans in governments. The companies aren't expanding value added production, instead moving businesses that create profits out of the country to lower foreign holdings profit taxes lands, lower than here which means the exodus of jobs, machines, wealth and investment money will continue. The Locusts are moving on.
Ask yourself; how many tycoons in Manhattan have foreign homes ready to go to and is their wealth tied up their in secret accounts, investments or factories they own nearby?
I wouldn't be surprised if those tycoons get a real chuckle out of this essay. They don't have to laugh all the way to the bank. They are the banks.
28
Thanks everyone for reading, but I have a question. Summarizing; if no one has much savings anymore, and way too much debt from usury like excess credit, how will people have the means to be consuming in the future if the money is leaving the country and not flowing back through the ridiculous fantasy that is "Trickle Down Economics"?
We are spending our way to being poverty stricken again after numerous decades of gains through the "Great Society" programs mostly by the Democrats.
This is far bigger than "Snowflakes" hurt feelings. This is the Great Brain Robbery as Republicans appear to be natural born thieves.
2
@PATRICK Bravo.
3
Anyone on wall street with a net worth of at least $1 million dollars should automatically serve 2 years in a federal prison, on principle alone. It might help them remember what life's like for regular people.
16
@Markymark Lots of us are worth more than $1 million. Who do you think is paying for everything?
@Markymark
It's instructive to learn your opinion that life for regular people is equivalent to serving two years in a federal prison.
@Markymark
Anyone who shows such lack of knowledge of capital in the modern economy should bang their head against the closet brick wall to restore some common sense.
Study Pol Pot.
I am a Democrat and I do not work on Wall Street. I am not in the 1%, but I find Warren the most frightening of all the candidates running for president because of her temperament and her proposals. Krugman is flat out wrong.
6
Her temperament? What, because she is a women who has serious plans for helping most of the people?
1
@David
What on earth do you find so frightening? And interesting that you should find her more frightening than Sanders, who sees much less place for finance billionaires than Warren does in a good society....
1
@David - Her temperament? Care to expand upon that? If by her temperament you really mean because she is a woman, you should take a look at Trump and the showboating Republicans’ Oscar-worthy emotional rants.
Her proposals? Which ones are a threat to you? Please elaborate. Is it the ones designed to regulate Facebook or the ones that give normal Americans some chance at a decent life?
Your vague comment seems to be built on either shallow knowledge of the facts, a fear of women in power, or believing talking points you read or heard elsewhere. Yeah, it would be just awful to have someone extremely intelligent, inspiring and authentic as President. Just horrible.
If you are scared of Warren, that is on you. Nevertheless, she persists.
1
There is a certain fragility reminiscent of the self-important bully who has finally gotten a comeuppance.
These are people who are used to being deferred to not because of the currency of their great ideas but, well, just for the greatness of their currency.
To question the validity of their viewpoint is to challenge their whole world view. Warren is just the personification of what they see happening around them more and more, so of course they hate her.
Can’t stop the tide, though - and the tide is definitely coming in for these folks.
48
If Wall Street’s panicked and against her then she must be great for most Americans!
You Go Senator!
110
Nice slap at doctors, Prof. Krugman. Even docs want reform!
People who spend a minimum of 11 years out of high school and work night and day to save people's lives actually care about people! Who would have thought it?
Economists have more in common with finance types than docs do.
10
@vbering -- If my doctor was against reform (she's not) I'd get a new doctor. Not to be trusted.
9
@vbering For some reason doctors in Europe are willing to "work night and day to save people's lives" for a lot less money than American doctors make.
And yes, folks in Northern Europe are easily as healthy as Americans.
Not to mention that the vast majority of doctors do not "work night and day to save people's lives." Ever hear of, say, cosmetic surgery?
11
in Europe, medical students are able to attend med school without accruing at the very least 300k student loan debt. doctors in Europe do not face crippling malpractice insurance rates. Thus doctors in Europe can afford to make less than astronomically high wages.
The weaponized state of current higher education costs is just part of the answer to your question
7
I wish Mr. Krugman would be an economist again and use economic arguments rather than political in the attempts to make his points.
5
@Boomer
Uh, there are important economic arguments here--specifically about the question of the economic value of what these guys are doing. Finance was only included in GDP around 1970 or so--before that it was reasonably thought to be moving value around rather than creating it.
17
@Boomer - What, no one has made the “OK, Boomer” comment?
OK, Boomer.
The STANDARD OPERATING PROCEDURE of these tycoons is to not give an inch for fear of losing a mile. Dig in early and scare the rubes, that is us by the way.
However, given today's realities we have to consider that Trump is in incompetent empire builder. That's why he takes direction from Putin. As someone else says very well, (thanks LT), "A vote for Trump keeps us on the road to authoritarianism. Billionaires do fine under authoritarians until the day they suddenly don't." It is short term thinking for them in the extreme: Can't see beyond the current quarter.
Once the authoritarian system is in place one cannot safely buck the new system. The authoritarians are ruthless, amoral, and vindictive.
18
Italy is offering refuge to high income individuals seeking refuge from tax mongers like Warren by limiting annual income taxes to €100,000. Our European friends are learning the lesson of the golden goose as Warren is sharpening her sticking knife. The high tax Nordic paradises, that NJ/NY liberals stubbornly refuse to relocate to, abandoned wealth taxes long ago.
By the way, Krugman wrote an article on October 24, 2019, celebrating the end the Trump economic boom. Where did the Dow close today?
1
@Registered Repub Nonsense. Various European countries are tweeking their tax systems. Scandinavian taxes for example are still much higher than ours. And they're doing fine.
If we had had high enough income taxes over the years we wouldn't need wealth taxes.
As for the "Trump boom" and the stock market, do you really not understand that the stock market is not the economy? What's the annual increase in GDP? How's the bond market doing? Manufacturing? Ordinary folks' standard of living?
11
@Registered Repub -- Wow, Italy is such a great economic model. Not.
If Italy is the alternative, then clearly Warren's ideas are sound.
Yep. Right on. And as Victor Hugo said, "Where there is great wealth, there is great crime."
24
I usually disagree with most of what Mr. Krugman writes. But this analysis is really spot-on.
9
@Walker,
Then why come back and read him, seems kind of odd. It sounds like you rarely agree with him, and by rare, I mean never, except for today........
@James Because I force myself to read things that I disagree with. It makes me a more informed citizen. You should try it.
1
It is fantastic that, in the current arrangement of the online opinion page, there is an anti-progressive rant from a Wall Street snowflake at the top, a few items above this excellent piece.
This is just the beginning - there will be much more, as these are rich snowflakes who can afford the media and the flacks. Thank you for this lob in the opposite direction: much, much more is needed, as the media is generally not just bought by "malefactors of great wealth", but cowed by them as well.
25
Did you notice, additionally, that a more equitable share of the economic pie is anathema for the 'rich and powerful'? They seem convinced that all the fortune they amassed was exclusively from their own talent and a bit of luck, disregarding the vast infrastructure and lots of people (producers, service and consumers) that made it all possible? Hence, their dislike of democracy, that 'demands' solidarity and integration of even the least among us. Wall Street ought to be very thankful that he didn't push justice for what was the right thing to do, put them in jail...instead of allowing them to go on enriching themselves with huge bonuses...soon after their bailout. Oh well, the odious inequality Wall Street is generating shall boomerang, hopefully sooner than later. As it stands, it looks like a reversed socialism, where the rich take (steal?) from the poor. And they can't take well-earned criticism for a change? Give us a break!
29
@manfred marcus And let's not forget the great number of individuals who did absolutely nothing to amass wealth but be born into it.
3
@Annie And while we are adding 'dirt', how about those that cheat on us purposefully...while hiring evil-smart lawyers...so to avoid paying fair taxes, like the rest of us. Taxes, however much we may dislike them, serve a noble purpose, that of keeping our communities together, and providing the basic needs we have 'ordered' our representatives to carry out, education, health care, decent job availability and affordable housing.
2
These sky-is-falling Wall Street hysterics sound like another person from vast wealth with a fragile ego, the nation's leading narcissist, tax-dodger and snake-oiler, Donald Trump.
Trump, as most humanists have observed by now, is completely empty and hollow inside. He only can find meaning in life through money, power, looking in the mirror and staring at newspaper, televisions, tweets and buildings with his name on them.
He's unable to experience the normal joys of humanity the way most people are.
Wall Streeters tend to be that way, too.
Wall St. is largely comprised of one-dimensional money-worshipers and the power that money brings with it.
There may be some very fine people on Wall St., but most Wall Streeters go there because they're disturbingly comfortable with a 'greed is good' life philosophy.
They have no problem with economic injustice, record income and wealth inequality, the biggest healthcare rip-off in the world and the rigged system they've built that loves to skim cash off the nation's 401Ks, pensions and stocks when no one's looking.
The whiny Wall Street whimpering suggest two things:
1. Warren knows how to break up the Wall St. Welfare Queen program that is a drain on society
2. The people running Wall Street are deep seated narcissists and have a real problem contributing their fair share to society because they think the world belongs to them.
An anti-endorsement from Wall St. is a solid endorsement in my book.
Elizabeth Warren 2020
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@Socrates
Wall Streeters have actually been able to convince themselves that what they 'do' - mainly moving pixels around a screen and finding ever more elaborate ways to scam off real people, is an essential feature of the economy. Warren could be the one to bring down their cozy little world, and we all would be far better off.
50
@Socrates this is a good example of what the human character is and is not. An example of a group of people that cares for their community and fellow Americans and another group that cares only for themselves. We do seem to move forward as a society but it is painfully slow and bloody. The progress seems to be dependent on a once in a generation leader like FDR and LBJ. Where is this generations LBJ?
10
@Plennie Wingo I had a boyfriend back in the early 1980s who remarked that paying people a lot of money simply for moving a lot of money around was not a very wise plan. I think of that comment often, these days.
16
Billionaires don't care about the catastrophes their greed might occasion because they are certain they will be immune. If the economy collapses they will be bailed out. And even if they aren't bailed out they can still finance their lifestyles with the stashes they have tucked away in offshore bank accounts. Should the environment deteriorate as predicted they are looking forward to life in some kind of executive bubble, soundproofed so they can't hear the rest of us choke. And if the natives get restless, there are all those clever repressive technologies to make sure rebellion goes nowhere.
15
"CEO's are trying to protect their business model."
And that model is insider trading.
It has become almost impossible to charge the bigwigs for what they are doing practically every day. They know that Warren understands this completely and fear her.
They also know that Trump is one of them. They could probably blackmail him if needed.
22
The reason doctors aren't in open revolt is because they are such notoriously good business people!
Many are undoubtedly planning to retire and let whatever doctors come along after them deal with whatever system evolves from here.
5
Wall Street is self interested. Todays headlines announced a big windfall on the market. This is all they care about. They truly believe, if we provide health care for more Americans, this will affect their returns. They are for the most part, so far removed from the average life of US citizens they believe their own, narcissistic conclusion that, our economy is better solely because, stocks values are higher. It isn't bad they are higher. But, their interests are purely selfish. Only 53% of Americans have ANY money in the Stock Market. Those that do, most often have a little compared to these moguls, invested in their Roth or other, IRA. I believe a healthy United States would result in a better economy, a more egalitarian and ultimately, prosperous country. I have no issue with millionaires if the other 99% of the United States has a fair chance at surviving and living a comfortable life. While I don't think we should rush into, Medicare for all I do favor Medicare for many. We can and ultimately should, model our health care industry on the Canadian/French/British/Portuguese systems.
15
These people have made their fortunes on the basis of... nothing.
Playing games with money is how they have accumulated wealth - not by solving some critical problem, not by inventing something new and essential, not by any noble effort and sacrifice.
They are hollow men, and their money can not fill them. They have nothing solid in their lives. They demand respect knowing they have not earned it, and any import they have is based on the size of their bank accounts, not their souls.
48
With the exception that they studied harder than anyone else, woke up in the middle of the night to be at work at 5am and sacrificed everything to do their jobs. So, not always useless ppl.